Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

STANDING ORDERS (PRIVATE BUSINESS)

Ordered,
That the Amendments to Standing Orders set out in the Schedule be made, with effect from 27th November 2001:—

SCHEDULE

Standing Order 1, line 46, at end insert:—

'the term "minister of the Crown' means the holder of an office in Her Majesty's government in the United Kingdom and includes the Treasury;'.

Standing Order 38, line 15, at end insert—

'(2A) The printed memorandum shall include a statement of opinion, by or on behalf of the promoters, as to the compatibility of the provisions of the bill with the Convention rights (as defined in the Human Rights Act 1998).'.

Standing Order 39, line 6, after 'Treasury', insert 'the Privy Council Office,'.

Standing Order 85, line 6, at end insert—

'(2) Without prejudice to the generality of paragraph (1) of this standing order, where in the case of a private bill which has been read a first time no report from a minister of the Crown has been presented to the House under Standing Order 169A, the Chairman of Ways and Means may, if he thinks fit, direct the attention of the House to that fact.'.

Standing Order 144, leave out lines 12 to 15.

Standing Order 158, line 16, at end insert—

'(by being deposited in the Private Bill Office)'.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means]

Ordered,

That the following Standing Order be made, with effect from 27th November 2001:—

Reports concerning human rights.

169A. In the case of a private bill originating in this House or brought from the House of Lords, a report from a minister of the Crown on the statement of opinion required by Standing Order 38(2A) shall be presented to the House (by being deposited in the Private Bill Office) not later than the second sitting day after that on which the bill was read a first time.'.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Oral Answers to Questions — CABINET OFFICE

The Minister was asked—

Oral Answers to Questions — Rural-Urban Policy Co-ordination

Mr. Simon Hughes: What recent reviews she has undertaken of the co-ordination of Government policy on rural and urban policy. [159095]

The Minister for the Cabinet Office (Marjorie Mowlam): As chair of the ministerial rural affairs group, I have been closely involved with the preparation and implementation of the rural White Paper. Urban policy is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, but we work closely together.

Mr. Hughes: The past few months have revealed considerable Government failings in co-ordinating rural policy. However, will the Minister, in her pivotal role, urgently examine urban policy with her colleagues? Will she try to ensure that, in future, instead of providing different sorts of funding, for which people apply by different means and at different times, there will be one commonly accessible one-stop shop so that people know what is available and can make bids? Local councils could then implement co-ordinated urban policy in their areas.

Marjorie Mowlam: Policies on, for example, drugs and rough sleeping were already co-ordinated across Departments. There is joined-up government on many policies. Urban and rural areas experience problems with health, education and jobs.
We have recently worked closely with local authorities and providers on neighbourhood regeneration schemes. Whatever the policy proposals, the same people are often involved in implementing them. Neighbourhood regeneration is the beginning of joining up government locally to avoid a cluster of policy announcements that people have to implement.

Mr. Harry Barnes: As a start to policy co-ordination, should not we co-ordinate rural areas with each other so that they receive the same benefits? I am thinking of the effect of foot and mouth disease on tourism and the fact that some rural areas are not listed to receive rate benefits and other provisions. If the map was properly drawn, areas such as north-east Derbyshire might be able to get in on the act.

Marjorie Mowlam: As my hon. Friend knows, we have invested £6 million in advertising tourism, and we hope that tourists will return to urban and rural areas throughout the country. He mentioned rate benefits for shops, pubs, garages and small businesses in villages. They were drawn up according to specific criteria, which will be reviewed. I am sure that his point will be noted.

Mr. Dafydd Wigley: In the wake of foot and mouth disease, which has hit rural areas so hard in recent weeks, does the Minister accept that one of the


co-ordination challenges is ensuring that people in urban areas realise that rural areas are open for visitors? Will she join me in welcoming the news that from Friday, access to Snowdon is likely to be reopened? She will shortly have more time at her disposal, and I invite her to visit and enjoy Snowdon, as we invite thousands of people from all parts of these islands.

Marjorie Mowlam: I thank the right hon. Gentleman very much. I shall come with the rest of my team, and we shall have an enjoyable day out.
I assure the right hon. Gentleman that we have been doing as much as we can to increase tourism and encourage people to visit rural areas. Ministers have visited different places, and we have spent an additional £6 million advertising the fact that rural areas are open. Approximately 91 per cent. of tourist attractions and almost as many participatory attractions are open. I hope that the message will go out from the House today that rural and urban areas are open for business and that people can go and enjoy the facilities there. We have allocated an extra £4 million to speed up the opening of footpaths and assist local authorities with that. I hope that a full return to business will happen soon.

Mr. Andrew Lansley: If it is the right hon. Lady's valedictory appearance at Cabinet Office questions, I wish her well on behalf of the Opposition.
The Minister knows that the need for co-ordinating rural policy has never been more acute than in the past two and a half months since the outbreak of foot and mouth disease. Will she tell the House whether the rural affairs group, which she mentioned earlier, has met during that period? If so, has it considered the proposal, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) has made for six weeks, for the introduction of an interest-free loan to support businesses that are hard hit by foot and mouth?

Marjorie Mowlam: I do not know whether this is my last Question Time. The hon. Gentleman obviously knows more than I do about that, but I thank him for his comments.
I assure the hon. Gentleman that the rural affairs group continues to work on the co-ordination of rural policy. We are working hard on aspects of the rural White Paper and we have rural proofing in place. Under the ministerial code, we do not have to announce whether the group has met, but I can say, as its Chair, that I have enjoyed a number of discussions with my ministerial colleagues and that we will continue to ensure that policies—particularly the one that the hon. Gentleman mentioned—are given full consideration.

Mr. Lansley: If the right hon. Lady cannot, or will not, tell the House how many times the group has met, will she at least explain how the Cabinet Office has discharged its responsibility for the co-ordination of policy? Where was the co-ordination of policy in the Cabinet Office when the Minister for the Environment was saying the opposite of what the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was saying on safe areas; when the Minister of the Environment was announcing a public inquiry and the Prime Minister was saying the opposite; or when the

Prime Minister's official spokesman announced a change in the policy on slaughtering, and the Minister of Agriculture did not even seem to know about it? Has the Cabinet Office abdicated its responsibility to try to get co-ordinated decisions in the management of this crisis?

Marjorie Mowlam: I withdraw my generous offer of consideration of the policy that the hon. Gentleman mentioned earlier, only because it occurred to me that I have no idea how much it would cost. I would hate to make any indication that such a commitment would be given without some idea of the finance involved.
In relation to co-ordination in the rural affairs group and the Cabinet Office, we co-ordinate on rural proofing, on the rural White Paper, and across Departments. When the foot and mouth crisis started, the Prime Minister decided that it was big enough for a taskforce to be created, chaired by the Minister of Agriculture, because the main problem was in areas covered by his Ministry. However, all the Ministers in the rural affairs group, as well as other people particularly relevant to foot and mouth disease, were represented round the table, and co-ordination took place in regular morning meetings. In a difficult situation such as the foot and mouth crisis, what is appreciated from the Opposition is support rather than vacuous criticism.

Oral Answers to Questions — Drugs

Ms Rosie Winterton: If she will make a statement on progress made by the UK anti-drugs co-ordinator. [159096]

The Minister for the Cabinet Office Marjorie Mowlam): The anti-drugs co-ordinator's annual report for 1999–2000 shows that we are making progress towards meeting the challenging targets that we have set as part of our 10-year anti-drugs strategy. The co-ordinator's role involves him visiting local community projects. He has, for example, recently visited Doncaster, where he saw at first hand the initiatives taking place. He is also responsible for enforcement by trying to work across national boundaries in Europe and elsewhere, to maximise the efforts to cut supply.

Ms Winterton: My right hon. Friend may be aware that central Doncaster was awarded £52 million on Monday under the new deal for communities, and one of the flagship schemes is a drugs rehabilitation project. That is extremely welcome. The only concern of the local drugs action team is to find medical staff trained in detox programmes. Will she therefore discuss with the anti-drugs co-ordinator—particularly given their support for the efforts being made in Doncaster—whether we need to do more to encourage medical professionals to enter this field and have a fast-track programme to train detox staff?

Marjorie Mowlam: I thank my hon. Friend for her question and the acknowledgement that the £52 million that has gone into Donny will make a big difference, as such funding has in other cities, in terms of the important project to which a locality chooses to allocate the money. Drug rehabilitation was chosen in Doncaster; other areas


will choose closed circuit television to try to halt crime. It is up to the local partnership to decide how to allocate the money.
On recruitment, we advertised for more drug counsellors, as we were well aware that some areas had difficulties in respect of adequate staffing. As a result of a national campaign, we received more than 42,000 expressions of interest—far more than we ever expected.
Additional funding has been provided to drug action teams, which have been working with local service providers to turn those expressions of interest into work on the ground by local people. To help with that, we have established a bursary scheme, which will create basic training for newly recruited workers. I hope that the follow through will begin soon, but I shall certainly watch the Doncaster situation to ensure that the money is matched by an adequate number of counsellors. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. We must have order in the Chamber.

Rev. Martin Smyth: I congratulate those who have been doing positive work in trying to deal with and curb drug addiction. Will the Minister say whether there has been much success, in sequestrating the funds of those who make large profits from drugs? Does she accept that those who try to educate people away from drug use often hear discordant voices in high places suggesting that some drugs are not harmful? Is not that a dangerous practice?

Marjorie Mowlam: We have allocated more money, because of the difficulty caused by young people getting involved with drugs. We have put an additional £152 million into education recently and there are programmes in most schools—we are up to 96 per cent. of secondaries and 76 per cent. of primaries—to ensure that that education is of a quality that makes a difference. We have also put more funding into "positive futures", which I think operates in the hon. Gentleman's neck of the woods. I remember reading about a scheme in Northern Ireland.
That positive initiative is aimed at keeping young people, whether they are excluded or truants, out of the culture on the street and encouraging them to involve themselves in activities such as sport. We have received a lot of support from sporting figures in getting the scheme going. That is what we are doing to get young people off the streets and, I hope, to make better choices in life.
We have concentrated on heroin and cocaine because they are the killers, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that there is no discordance in policy. We will do all that we can to ensure that young people become aware of the problems with drugs.

Mr. Paul Flynn: The Government are about to make more widely available the deadly addictive drug alcohol, which is involved in 80 per cent. of crimes of violence and abuse. However, they still support the jailing of those seriously ill people who use cannabis medicinally, in spite of the fact that, a month ago, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's conference said that the drug has unique benefits for those who suffer from

severe pain and the effects of multiple sclerosis. Why are the Government soft on a hard drug and hard on a soft drug?

Marjorie Mowlam: The first part of my hon. Friend's question relates to alcohol. We are considering what we can do to co-ordinate alcohol and drug policy, because there is clearly a discordance between drugs, alcohol and how they are treated. We are fully committed to taking action on alcohol. I come from an alcoholic family, so I know the difficulties that alcohol creates and I assure him that work is under way.
In relation to cannabis and its medicinal use, as I have said to my hon. Friend on many occasions, we are considering that issue and we keep our policy under constant review. With DW Pharmaceuticals involved, we have a good chance of not being too far from producing a cannaboid, which will be tested by the Medical Research Council. That will provide comfort to those suffering from MS and other diseases. I assure my hon. Friend that the matter is not ignored; it is kept under constant review, and we will change policy when the scientific evidence merits that.

Mrs. Ann Winterton: Is the Minister shocked by the recent adolescent assessment services group report, which calculates that drug abuse has become a regular part of the daily life of more than 400,000 under-16s who use cannabis—now accepted to be a gateway drug—heroin and cocaine? Does she accept that mere harm reduction education programmes have failed those youngsters, and scrap them by removing public funds from their wrong-headed liberal providers? Will she substitute a sensible, sustained campaign—pursued with real conviction—in which children are told the truth about the harmful biological, social and economic consequences of taking any illegal drug?

Marjorie Mowlam: We share the hon. Lady's concern—as do most people in this country—about the increasing number of very young people who are experimenting with drugs. The situation is unhealthy and appalling.
We have tried sending messages in the past, but "Just say no" had no effect, or at most a very limited effect. Now, with "positive futures", we are working towards better educational programmes, in which role models and mentors talk to children and try to steer them into a different life. To advertise the problems of drugs, we are trying—with the help of the £220 million over three years that has just gone into communities—to work with those communities, and to work with parents, and in partnership with voluntary and other organisations. The one way to get through to young kids in a community is to work with their parents, peers and mentors, and that is the approach that we are adopting.

Mr. Bob Blizzard: If she will make a statement on the part played by treatment in the ant-drugs strategy. [159098]

The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Mr. Ian McCartney): Treatment is a key component of the Government's 10-year strategy. We are committed to improving the provision of drug services across the country, such as the NORCAS agency in Lowestoft.
We have already seen a steady increase in the number of problem drug misusers attending treatment services, which was up by 8 per cent. in the six months to March 2000. We have established a counselling, assessment, referral, advice and through-care service in every prison in England and Wales, and through the spending review we have allocated an additional £167 million for drug treatment services over three years from 2001–02. We have also set up a new National Treatment Agency, which is engaged in an appointments process and will make announcements shortly.

Mr. Blizzard: I welcome the extra £89,000 a year for the next three years that has just been announced for the local crime reduction partnership in my constituency, under the Government's communities against drugs initiative. It will really help the fight against the menace of drugs in my part of the country.
We have had substantial funds for treatment purposes, but the problem is recruiting people to be trained to administer treatment. Will my right hon. Friend look into recruitment? Treatment is crucial to getting people off drugs, getting crime down, and preventing our streets from being littered with needles. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Before the Minister replies, let me say that there is far too much noise in the Chamber. It is unfair to Members who want to hear what is being said.

Mr. McCartney: In replying to my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton), my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office gave an absolute commitment on the very issue that my hon. Friend has raised. Let me confirm that in spades: we will look into both the Doncaster situation and the situation in my hon. Friend's constituency as a matter of urgency.
Resources have been made available, because 42,000 people want to do this job and need to be trained. I give my hon. Friend an absolute assurance that I will get back to him as soon as possible after considering his particular circumstances.

Mrs. Teresa Gorman: The hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) gave the example of alcohol. When the Americans tried prohibition as a way of restricting alcohol use, was not the attempt a complete failure? Is it not time that we looked at the problem of drug taking more from the viewpoint of the victims—those who are attacked and robbed by drug addicts—than from that of people who are silly enough to take the drugs?

Mr. McCartney: I hope that the hon. Lady will not take this wrongly, but her last comment was the silliest comment about drugs that I have heard in this place. As one who witnessed, on a daily basis, a son dying of drug abuse, I can say that that was not a self-inflicted injury, and also that it is not possible to take cannabis as something other than a gateway to more dangerous drugs.
Frankly, I am sick and tired of Members in this House and people outside thinking that there is an easy answer to preventing children from falling into drug abuse traps—through cannabis and then from that to other drugs. This is a very difficult, complex issue. We have a 10-year plan. I hope that the hon. Lady will get behind it. Every year

we succeed with that, hundreds of children who would die if they did not have the plan will go on to be good citizens and good adults.

Dr. Brian Iddon (Bolton, South-East): I welcome the setting up of the National Treatment Agency, but does my right hon. Friend agree that treatment should be more than methadone, methadone and even more methadone, and that choices of treatment must be made available? Will he encourage the NTA to offer those choices, including more abstinence programmes, so that we can wean people off methadone?

Mr. McCartney: I make it absolutely clear that the whole purpose of building capacity in treatment is to provide an individual service to meet the needs of the individual. Many of those individuals have complex multi-drug problems, so each treatment has to relate to their needs and get them to buy into the treatment. Far too often, a young person starts treatment, goes off it and ends up using illegal drugs, getting damaged and sometimes dying from an overdose. My hon. Friend's point is well catered for in the new strategy. Additional resources are being made available to ensure at local level that drug treatment referral systems and capacity relate to the needs of the individual and not to the system.

Jackie Ballard: The Minister will be aware that many drug addicts lead chaotic life styles that do not lend themselves easily to treatment within the community. What progress have the Government made in the past four years in the provision of residential treatment facilities for drug addicts who are not serving prison sentences?

Mr. McCartney: That is a fair question. One of the key challenges for the Government is to provide growing capacity. We have set ourselves targets for 2002, 2005 and 2008. One of the aims of the National Treatment Agency and of the resources that are going into the Prison Service is to develop the strategy that she talks about: outreach facilities where individuals can seek what I would call asylum—a protected environment to deal with their specific needs. Some of those needs are to do with chaotic drug use, some with their mental health, and some with their physical health. Sometimes, it is all three. Because of that, treatment in the community is sometimes not a realistic prospect for them in the first instance, so the point is well made. I assure the hon. Lady that that is part of the strategy.

Oral Answers to Questions — Quangos

Mr. Bob Russell: If she will make a statement on the extent to which quangos are being replaced by democratically elected bodies. [159099]

The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr. Graham Stringer): Responsibility for 300 public bodies has been transferred to the newly elected Chambers in Belfast, Edinburgh, London and Cardiff.

Mr. Russell: I wonder whether the Minister can say whether any quangos were involved in the Wembley fiasco. Many of us were expecting a Labour Government


to roll back the quangoland of the Conservatives. Why is new Labour so opposed to democratic control over the police, schools, hospitals and local colleges?

Mr. Stringer: I can tell the hon. Gentleman that, for example, the Funding Agency for Schools has been transferred back to local authorities. That body had an expenditure of nearly £2 billion. However, if he wants to trade figures, 41 executive non-departmental bodies, 125 non-executive bodies, 16 tribunals and one board of visitors have been transferred. It means that, in net terms, although some have been created and some merged, there are 10 per cent. fewer quangos than when the Government came to office.

Mrs. Louise Ellman: What recommendations would my hon. Friend make in giving powers to regional chambers, so that they could bring accountability to regional quangos before we have directly elected regional authorities? When does he anticipate that they will come into being in England?

Mr. Stringer: It is Government policy to give the electorates in the different regions the opportunity to decide whether they elect regional assemblies. When such assemblies are elected—if the electorates so choose—they will have a transparent relationship with many of the existing regional public bodies.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIME MINISTER

The Prime Minister was asked—

Oral Answers to Questions — Engagements

Mr. Andrew Robathan: If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 2 May.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Tony Blair): This morning, I spoke to Sir John Stevens, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis. I am sure that the whole House will wish to join me in sending our congratulations to the Met police on a successful operation yesterday. I also had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further such meetings later today.

Mr. Robathan: Tomorrow, our capital city will be brought to a standstill by the RMT. Will the Prime Minister explain to all those who will have to endure tomorrow's chaos that the RMT not only gives his Transport Secretary a flat in Clapham, but pays the Hull, East constituency Labour party in excess of £1,000 a year, which should have, but never has, been declared in the Register of Members' Interests? At this time, is it appropriate that his Transport Secretary is in hock to the RMT?

The Prime Minister: First, what the hon. Gentleman says about my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is simply not correct. Secondly, I agree entirely that the industrial action is unjustified.
As for the tube in general, I remind Conservative Members that this Government are investing in its future. The Conservative party cut that investment and is committed to privatising the tube.

Mr. David Lammy: The Prime Minister will be aware that, in the last four years, his Government have taken 700 failing schools out of special measures, compared with just 27 in the last years of the Tories. The Government have also turned around failing local education authorities. Can my right hon. Friend assure Tottenham parents that, alongside the improvements in our primary schools, we can now have greater confidence in our secondary schools?

The Prime Minister: No fewer than seven failing schools in Haringey have been taken out of special measures in the last few years. That stands in sharp contrast to what happened before. I know that my hon. Friend will realise that, today, we have the best primary school results that this country has ever seen. That is as a result of the investment that this party has put in. The Conservative party is still committed to cutting that vital investment in the services of the future.

Mr. William Hague: On behalf of the Opposition, may I express my admiration for the tremendous job done by the Metropolitan police yesterday—not just by the senior police officers but by thousands of police men and women who had to put up with abuse and sometimes violent scuffles in order to maintain the peace in London yesterday?
On a less successful aspect of Government management, will the Prime Minister tell us which project he thinks the Department for Culture, Media and Sport can be proudest of: the national lottery operator, the dome or Wembley stadium?

The Prime Minister: As the right hon. Gentleman well knows, Wembley stadium is a Football Association project, not a Government project. Might I just remind him that the project was initiated in 1994, when he was a member of the Government?

Mr. Hague: All of a sudden, it is not a Government project. The truth is that the Government's handling of each of those projects has been a fiasco and has poured £750 million down the drain. If it is not a Government project, why did the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport say last year:
We would have ended up with a fiasco if we had not taken action"?
Why did he say that
we were right to take the decision we did. We will have emerged … with possibly the best of both worlds"?
That would have been an own goal had he not taken down the goal posts. Why did the Culture Secretary describe the new designs for Wembley as stunning, only for the Minister for Sport to say that it was the wrong kind of stadium? The Government have been involved throughout. They scrapped the design, closed the stadium and dug up the


pitch. Will the Government now take responsibility and apologise to millions of sports fans for the huge mess they have created?

The Prime Minister: The bandwagonning activities of the right hon. Gentleman know no bounds. This was a project that was agreed in 1994. In 1996, again when he was a member of the Government, they agreed £120 million of lottery money and it was agreed as a Football Association project. I regret the fact that it has fallen through, and we must now sit down and work out a way through it so that we have a proper national stadium. However, it is absolutely absurd, in circumstances in which the FA has made it clear throughout that it should be its project with private sector backing, for the right hon. Gentleman to park his bandwagon at Wembley and blame the Government.

Mr. Hague: We are not taking lectures on bandwagons from a man who last week allowed the whole of Government policy to be dictated by Phoenix the calf. The Government never take responsibility for anything. They approved the design for Wembley stadium and said that it was magnificent. In the space of four years, they have spent £120 million closing Wembley stadium, one of the most famous sites in Britain, and £600 million turning the dome into one of the least popular sites in the world. Does not it sum up four years of this Government that they have spent a fortune of other people's money creating what did not work and wrecking what did work, while failing to deliver anything of practical value at all?

The Prime Minister: I now take that as the right hon. Gentleman's view that Wembley should never have been closed. Perhaps then he will explain why, in 1994, the Government of whom he was a member actually took the decision to have a new national stadium. As we are talking about reputations and what works and does not work, I treated the House a few months ago to the views of Mr. Nigel Hastilow, and today I wish to bring a new figure before the House—the parliamentary candidate from Bridgwater, Mr. Liddell-Grainger, whose local Conservatives have put out a leaflet that reads
What we have to do is"—

Hon. Members:: Order.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Do not tell me how to do my job.

The Prime Minister: Just listen. They said that they had
to explain to Conservatives who do not like William Hague that the only way to find a new leader is to get the Conservatives in power under William Hague so that a new leader can emerge from the more unknown Conservative Members".
Fortunately, there is a very broad field.
As for delivery, it is this party that has put a record amount of money into public services—schools, hospitals, transport and police—and it is the Conservative party that would cut the money.

Mr. Gerald Howarth: Disgraceful.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Howarth, I hope that you were not referring to me. I know how to conduct my affairs and I hope that you are not attacking the Chair.

Mr. Howarth: I shall raise a point of order at the end of Prime Minister's questions.

Mr. Speaker: You are perfectly entitled to raise a point of order, and I will not deny you that, but no one will shout at this Chair while these proceedings are going on.

Mr. Robin Corbett: Does my right hon. Friend accept that claims of a crisis in police recruitment and retention are as unhelpful to the police as they are untrue? West Midlands police last year recruited a record 547 officers and plan to do the same again this year. Will my right hon. Friend undertake to keep the investment that has made that possible at least at its present level?

The Prime Minister: Yes, the fact is that the number of police recruits is up something like 77 per cent. on last year. That means that as a result of the additional finances that have been put into the police, we have around 1,300 additional police officers. That is good news for my hon. Friend's constituency and many others, but it comes as part of a whole programme that is putting more money into recruiting public sector workers. Today, incidentally, we can also announce a 26 per cent. increase in graduate training applications for teaching. That is the investment that we have put in on the basis of a stable economy, delivering for the people of this country.

Mr. Charles Kennedy: Will the Prime Minister confirm that, on average over the course of this Parliament, investment in schools, hospitals and pensions as a proportion of our national income is lower under his Government than under the previous Government?

The Prime Minister: No. It is absolutely true that, in the first two years of this Government's term of office, for the reasons that we have explained, we applied very strict spending rules to get rid of the large deficit. However, in the past couple of years, spending on health and education as a proportion of gross domestic product and the extra money that we have given to pensioners have meant that a steadily rising proportion of our national income is now going to those services and those people.

Mr. Kennedy: Given what the Prime Minister does admit in terms of his policy, will he explain why, in the past four years, out-patient waiting lists have risen, secondary school class sizes have grown, and the number of pensioners plummeting into poverty has got bigger? Is not that a sad indictment of his premiership, and does not Britain deserve better?

The Prime Minister: In respect of poverty and pensioners, the right hon. Gentleman is simply wrong. The minimum income guarantee, the £200 winter fuel


allowance and the free television licences for pensioners aged over 75 have lifted significant numbers of pensioners out of poverty.
On class sizes, it is right that there has been a rise in secondary school class sizes of, I think, 0.3 of a pupil. There have been rises in class sizes for many years. We said that we would focus particularly on five, six and seven-year-olds, for whom there has been a dramatic reduction in class sizes. Overall, the figures for class sizes in all our schools are down, not up.
In respect of waiting lists, our pledge was to reduce in-patient waiting lists by over 100,000. We have met that pledge. Again, it is correct to say that out-patient lists rose for the initial period under this Government. Now, out-patient and in-patient lists are falling together.

Ms Hazel Blears: I am delighted that Kersal and Charlestown in Salford have been allocated an extra £53 million through the Government's new deal for communities. That will mean that there will be a health centre, jobs, money to tackle crime and a real future for young people. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that regenerating inner-city areas and reinvigorating their communities will remain a top priority for a Labour Government? Will not that be in contrast to the Tories, who condemned generations of our young people to a life without a decent future?

The Prime Minister: It will remain a priority, not only because it is right that money goes into local communities but because it helps the people of those communities by giving them some chance for the future. One of the Government's proudest achievements is the creation of some 1 million extra jobs in our economy. As a result, the amount of money that we are spending on benefits has fallen dramatically. Giving people a standard of living and a good chance for the future is good not just for them but for the economy as a whole.
I know that my hon. Friend will be the first to accept that the measures taken to reduce the national debt mean that, whereas when the Government carne to office we were spending more on interest payments on the debt than on the school system, we are now spending £10 billion a year more on the school system.

Mr. Crispin Blunt: I know that the reports in the armed forces of the Ministry of Defence's planned cuts have already caused several soldiers to resign because they see no future for their regiments under Labour. Will the Prime Minister guarantee to those soldiers, the armed forces and the electorate that there will be no cuts in the regiments of either the Regular Army or the Territorial Army while he remains Prime Minister? Yes or no?

The Prime Minister: The stories about the cuts in regiments were denied by the Ministry of Defence at the time. They are not true. It is also the case that, over the next few years, there will be the first real-terms rise in defence spending in this country for a long time. With the greatest respect to Conservative Members, their

protestations of affection for our armed forces would be a lot more credible if, when they were in office, they had not cut defence spending by 30 per cent.

Mr. Michael Clapham: Does my right hon. Friend agree that yesterday's pronouncement by President Bush that he is to ditch the anti-ballistic missile treaty is likely to move the world into a more dangerous phase? Does he also agree that, in that context, the expansion of NATO ought to be put on hold, as going ahead with it now would move the world into a much more dangerous state?

The Prime Minister: I understand entirely my hon. Friend's concerns, but I am afraid that I cannot agree with what he has said. I believe that the enlargement of NATO is vital to honour the promise that we gave to those emerging eastern European countries that are now democracies. I also think that President Bush has set out a case that we have to listen to about how this is a different world following the cold war—Russia is no longer an enemy of the west but, on the contrary, a partner. Therefore, it is important that we look at new ways of dealing with the threat of weapons of mass destruction.
We will make our deliberations on the more general issue of missile defence once we have a specific proposal from the American Administration. President Bush has set out a new argument and we need to listen to it. I also welcome the fact that he has made it clear that there will be consultations not only with close allies such as ourselves but with Russia. This is an argument that we must watch.

Mr. Tom Brake: Bob Kiley, the man who saved the New York underground, has described Labour's plans to part-privatise the London underground as fatally flawed, unworkable and dangerous. Why is the Prime Minister so committed to implementing them?

The Prime Minister: Because that is not the view of many others, including those who advised us on the original options. It is not a question of privatising the tube; it is about making sure that the infrastructure of the tube—the capital renewal work that is desperately important and needs billions of pounds to carry out—is done in the most effective way, giving the best value for money for the taxpayer.
We are prepared to put a record investment into the tube, but it must be done on the basis that the taxpayer gets value for money and that we do not repeat the experience of the Jubilee line, which ended up being constructed at a £2 billion overrun and a couple of years late. Therefore, it is important that we have the right relationship with the private sector so that the tube and the running of the tube remain publicly owned and in the public sector, but the construction work is done by the private sector.

Helen Jones: The Prime Minister will be well aware of the despair felt by parents who discover that a child of theirs is taking drugs. What can he say to the parents in my constituency, whose anxiety is greatly increased because they cannot get the support and information they need to help their child?


Will he ensure that some of the £200 million that has been allocated for community partnerships against drugs is used to support the families of drug users and those who work with them, such as the Footsteps project in Warrington, so that we can get real assistance to those in the front line of this battle?

The Prime Minister: The Footsteps project in Warrington is well known and highly successful. Part of the £200 million for community partnerships is precisely for that purpose. Something like £150 million will be put into drug action teams and projects around the country specifically to help families with drug problems.
It is important to recognise that drugs are often linked with the problem of social exclusion and with high levels of poverty, unemployment and deprivation in our inner cities. The investment in our inner cities that I mentioned a moment ago will also play its part in reducing the temptations for those youngsters to get into drugs.

Mr. William Hague: May I welcome the Prime Minister's disagreement with the hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) on defence matters, and ask him whether he thinks that Britain would benefit from the protection of a nuclear missile shield?

The Prime Minister: As I have said to the right hon. Gentleman and to the House on many occasions, we do not yet have a specific proposal from the United States Administration. We do not know what technology they will use—sea-based or land-based. The United States is sending over a team to consult its closest allies next week, and we will be part of that consultation. When we have a proposal, we will make our determination. However, we have said that we understand the issues that the United States is raising and, of course, will always work closely with our American allies.

Mr. Hague: The President gave an extremely clear speech yesterday. The Labour Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence said this morning that now that the President has said that America will develop a missile shield:
I think one has to decide yes or no are we going to support or not?
Is not what is needed the clearest possible public statement of principle that we want a defence shield to be developed and that such a shield would be in Britain's defence interest? Will the Prime Minister now give such a statement?

The Prime Minister: I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman. What is important is to make sure that we have a proposal from the United States Administration upon which we can give a considered view. I understand all the reasons why the right hon. Gentleman simply says that, whatever the proposal, we should agree with it. However, it is sensible, as we have said before, to wait until there is a specific proposal and to give our determination on that, recognising, as we do, that the issues raised by the American Administration are real and correct in respect of weapons of mass destruction but also knowing that it is a highly sensitive issue and that we

should handle it with care, as President Bush is indeed doing. The right hon. Gentleman seems more reluctant to do that.

Mr. Hague: It does not follow that, because it is a sensitive issue, Her Majesty's Government should dodge the issue. The Prime Minister continues to avoid giving proper and clear support to a missile shield, and that position has been noticed in the United States. Does he agree that missile defence gives the people of Britain the chance of defending ourselves in the future against the unimaginable horror of nuclear terrorism? Our closest ally is taking the lead on this issue. Is not it time that the Government had the courage to come out and support it?

The Prime Minister: It is not a question of courage. The question whether a missile defence shield could have an important role for this country is surely to be determined on the basis of the proposal that is actually put forward. It is important to study that proposal in detail and it is also important that we play a role in trying to make sure that whatever different views there may be are reconciled not just here but elsewhere. I believe that we can play such a role. We have made it quite clear already—I did so in the press conference that I held with President Bush at Camp David—that we understand the concerns that the Americans have raised. We recognise that it is a different world in terms of nuclear proliferation and missile defence than the world of 10, 15 or 20 years ago, but I believe it is important and right that we wait for a firm proposal before giving a firm decision.

Mr. Tony McWalter: Will my right hon. Friend accept my congratulations on the recent publication of the pensioners' guide? However, does he accept that something needs correcting in it? It gives people who have been bereaved only three months in which to make their claim. MPs and others have people coming to them because of the major financial difficulties that those people face because of bereavement, so will my right hon. Friend take a real interest in the issue to ensure that that period is extended?

The Prime Minister: I was not aware of the particular point that my hon. Friend has raised, but I shall certainly look into it. The purpose of the guide is to help pensioners—not just poor pensioners, but others as well—in difficulty. Therefore, I shall certainly look into the point that he makes.

Mrs. Jacqui Lait: Immediately before the previous general election, the right hon. Gentleman called for the publication of the report by the Standards and Privileges Committee on Mr. Neil Hamilton. Will the right hon. Gentleman give the same commitment to seek to ensure the publication of the Committee's report on the hon. Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson)? If he feels powerless to do so, will he instruct the Department of Trade and Industry to publish its report on the same Member?

The Prime Minister: It must surely be for the Privileges Committee to decide that; it is perfectly free to decide whatever it wishes.

Mr. John Grogan: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, nearly 90 years after Lloyd George first introduced legislation insisting that all pubs close at a fixed time, this Government will at an early opportunity create a more modern, a more flexible and a more civilised liquor-licensing system?

The Prime Minister: That may be one of the legacies of Lloyd George that the Liberal party is less keen to own up to. My hon. Friend is absolutely right and, in this day and age, such a change in the licensing laws is very important. I pay tribute to him, because he has campaigned so long and so hard for this change in the law. It is in part due to the persuasiveness of his arguments that the change has come about.

Mr. Lembit Öpik: I know that the Prime Minister will join me in offering his sympathy to the families of the three Montgomeryshire farmers who have tragically taken their own lives since the foot and mouth crisis began.
Because the welfare cull has been delayed, some livestock are dying in the fields of mid-Wales, so will the right hon. Gentleman be willing to respond personally to some proposals that I would like to send him on speeding up the welfare cull and to tackle the desperate levels of stress in our rural communities?

The Prime Minister: I shall certainly respond to any document that the hon. Gentleman sends me. There have been real problems with the welfare scheme, partly because of the large number of animals involved and because the restrictions on movement have been so great. We have recently been able to lift many of those restrictions, and something like 16,000 farms have been removed from them within the past few days. The numbers in the animal welfare scheme are falling the entire time, the backlog is reducing and many animals are being withdrawn, so it is likely to be far easier to implement the scheme than we originally thought. In addition, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has provided invaluable advice.
Of course, many farmers have suffered deep distress during the outbreak of foot and mouth disease, and that is one reason that we agreed to match the funding for such schemes as the rural stress network. I shall certainly consider any cases and documents that the hon. Gentleman sends me.

Ms Julia Drown: Parents and parents-to-be will welcome today's announcement on the recruitment of more midwives and the £100 million that is to be spent on maternity units up and down the country. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the priority for maternity services should be 1:1 midwifery care for women during labour, a reduction in the unhealthily high caesarian rate in this country, and improved post-natal care for families?

The Prime Minister: I agree with all my hon. Friend's points. Part of today's announcement is designed to deal with those issues. There will be about 500 extra midwives

in the health service by this time next year and an extra 2,000 over the next five years. We have been keen to expand that sector for some time. However, that policy should be seen alongside the additional money for accident and emergency departments, for the extra 17,000 nurses who now work in the health service and for the hospital-building programme, which is involved in 68 projects around the country, and the record investment that will go into the service in the next few years. Although it has taken time to achieve that, the money is going in and yielding a benefit.

Mr. David Rendel: Is the Prime Minister aware that foot and mouth has had a devastating effect on a number of industries apart from agriculture, in particular on racing? Is he also aware that because of cancelled race meetings, many jockeys have lost many rides and will not be compensated through a business rate scheme? Will he provide another form of compensation?

The Prime Minister: Additional money has, of course, been provided for various schemes, including for the tourism industry today. I am not aware of the particular issue that the hon. Gentleman raises, but I shall certainly look into it.
It is worth pointing out that the single most important consideration is that we manage to eradicate the last of the foot and mouth epidemic. I should like to pay tribute to the work done not just by the Army but by MAFF officials, who have done a heroic job at a local level and have managed, within two months of the epidemic starting, to reduce the number of cases to single figures a day, which is where we are now. There are still many issues to work out and problems will arise, but, as the operation has reduced the number of cases substantially, the pressure both on the farming industry and others is reducing. However, I shall consider the specific issue raised by the hon. Gentleman, of which I was unaware.

Dr. Norman A. Godman: Although we readily acknowledge the serious problems caused to farmers by foot and mouth, should not the same sympathy be shown to our beleaguered fishing industry? Many fishermen face ruin. If we are to have an adequate decommissioning scheme to reduce the United Kingdom fleet, should not Brussels aim to reduce the whole of the European Union fleet? It should not be aimed purely at the British fleet.

The Prime Minister: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend; of course the scheme should not be aimed simply at the British fleet. The cut in quotas is severely affecting the fishing industries of all European countries. We are well aware of the problems of the fishing industry, which is why my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food recently announced the decommissioning scheme. We hope to build on that, and provide support and assistance for the fishing industry and its communities to adapt in the way that they must. However, we have come to recognise, over a long period of time, that the trouble is that there is no alternative but to cut the amount of fish caught in the North sea, because of the problems of conserving stock.


We face a difficult decision, which we cannot avoid, but we are doing what we can to help the fishing industry through these times.

Sir Michael Spicer: Why does the Chancellor of the Exchequer keep pretending that the economy is not slowing down when it manifestly is?

The Prime Minister: I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman asked a question about the economy because it is rare for Conservative Members to do so. The reason that the Chancellor is, as he needs to be, cautiously

optimistic about the British economy is because under this Government we now have the lowest inflation in Europe; it is because after national debt doubled, we have reduced it very sharply; it is because we have a million extra jobs in the economy; it is because we have halved the rate of long-term unemployment; and it is because mortgage rates are half of what they were in the Conservative years. In other words, it is because we have a lot to be proud of.

Mr. Gerald Howarth: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: I will take the private notice question first.

Wembley Stadium

Mr. Peter Ainsworth(East Surrey): (by private notice): To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if he will make a statement about the Wembley national stadium project.

The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr. Chris Smith): The Football Association's announcement yesterday that it could not deliver its plans for Wembley was very disappointing news, all the more so given the repeated assurances given to Sport England and the Government over the whole of last year, by the Wembley project team, that everything was on track. The Government have consistently supported the concept of a national stadium, and have done so on the basis of continued assurances from football that its project would be delivered.
In 1996, the then Great Britain Sports Council decided that Wembley should be the location for a national stadium. From 1998 onwards, the project has been led by the Football Association via a wholly owned subsidiary, Wembley National Stadium Ltd. From that point, the Football Association and its subsidiary drove the project forward in negotiation with Wembley plc over the acquisition of the land and in agreement with Sport England over the terms of lottery funding for the acquisition, the design issues and, most importantly, securing the necessary financing to make the project viable.
Wembley National Stadium Ltd., under its chairman Ken Bates, consistently assured everyone that all was well with the project. That has proved not to be the case. The first occasion on which that was demonstrated was in the autumn of 1999, when it became clear that the needs of athletics could not sensibly be met by the WNSL scheme. That was a result of the costs of creating and dismantling the concrete platform for athletics, the costs of acquiring the necessary land for the required warm-up track and the fact that there would be no lasting legacy for athletics at the national stadium.
I therefore decided that athletics should be removed from Wembley, and subsequently Lee Valley athletics stadium was chosen by UK Athletics as the national centre for athletics and the venue for the 2005 world athletics championships. That decision has been entirely vindicated by subsequent events, and work is now well advanced on the designs for the Enfield stadium.
The second occasion on which WNSL's assurances that all was well with the project proved to be misplaced was in November last year when the loan syndication to finance the whole project failed. The principal reason for the banks' reluctance to provide finance was their doubts about the WNSL business case and, in particular, the ambitious projections of hospitality and premium-seat income. Let us not forget that the project had escalated in estimated cost from a little over £300 million to a total of £650 million. The banks were also concerned that the FA stood to gain from the project but carried little or no risk.
At that point, some much-needed realism was injected into WNSL and the Football Association's thinking on the project. Following the failure of the loan syndication, the FA replaced Ken Bates with Sir Rodney Walker as chairman of WNSL and took a much closer interest in the

project. The FA made clear its intention to address the banks' concerns that the FA itself was not taking its share of the risk in the project. Regrettably, the Government learned last week that the Football Association did not feel that it could do that without a further significant injection of funds. The FA initially requested up to £300 million from the Government. I am afraid that that is simply not on, especially when the scale of the current costly design of the new Wembley is due to the needs of the commercial interests in the project.
In the light of the FA's announcement yesterday, the Government will review all the options for a national stadium. To assist in that process, we have asked the existing ministerial group looking at cross-governmental issues surrounding the Commonwealth games to look at alternative solutions. I should stress at this stage that no options are ruled out. Therefore, a solution might be found to develop a new-build or a refurbishment solution at Wembley. Other alternatives may be considered. We want to play our part as the Government in securing a good, affordable and sustainable national stadium for England. That is what we will now do.

Mr. Ainsworth: I thank the Secretary of State for his reply. Does he accept that the failure of the national stadium project is a failure of public policy? Does he accept that the collapse of the project has brought humiliation to Britain and that people here and all over the world are shaking their heads in disbelief and asking why, under this Government, nothing seems to work any more? Does he accept that he carries heavy responsibility for the failure of Wembley? Does he acknowledge that his attempts to shuffle the blame on to Ken Bates and the Football Association are widely regarded as futile and cowardly? Did he not give his blessing to the appointment of Sir Rodney Walker, and did not Sir Rodney give his approval to the Bates plan earlier this year?
Does the Secretary of State accept that his claim that the project is not a Government one looks ridiculous, when it was his decision—and his alone—in autumn 1999 to abandon the original design after it had been approved by the British Olympic Association, the Football Association, the Rugby Football Union, Sport England and his own architectural advisers? If it was not a Government project, what right had he to intervene in that fatal way? Does he now accept that he was wrong to ignore the advice of the Select Committee, and that it was inexcusable, arrogant and contemptuous to dismiss that advice within minutes of it being offered?
Does the Secretary of State accept that his intervention plunged the project into controversy when none had previously existed, provoking 18 months of appalling publicity, when the project—of which we all wanted to be proud—became a fiasco and a byword for Government incompetence? Did not that do more than anything to undermine investor confidence in the project? Does he think it was helpful or responsible to describe the design as "stunning" and "magnificent" on 29 July 1999, when he later said in the House that
at the time, I was concerned about the viability of the proposed solution".—[Official Report, 1 December 1999; Vol. 340, c. 305.]
Does he understand that the present appalling situation stems directly from his actions and the train of confusion that they set in motion? Does he agree that he is responsible for 18 months of dither, delay and millions of wasted pounds?
What does the Secretary of State think his shambolic handling of this national project will tell the world about Britain's ability to host a future Olympic games? Is there not now, as a direct result of his actions, a real possibility that we will face the further humiliation of having to tell the International Amateur Athletics Federation that we cannot, after all, host the 2005 world championships?
The whole House wants to see the Wembley project back on track, but, if it cannot be revived, what will happen to the £120 million of lottery money that has already gone into it? Will the Secretary of State confirm that Wembley remains the Government's preferred venue for the national stadium?
It will be a relief to all who care about our national game that the Secretary of State has been shunted to the sidelines by the Prime Minister, but it is too late: the damage has been done. The Secretary of State has lost the confidence of the sporting world and of the public. He has lost the confidence of many of his right hon. and hon. Friends, including, by implication, the Prime Minister. If he had done the right thing and resigned when the first disastrous consequences of his actions became apparent, I honestly believe that we would now be looking forward to the opening of a great new national stadium. Instead, we are faced with a humiliating fiasco.
The Secretary of State is widely regarded as a decent man, but he has repeatedly proved himself to be an incompetent Minister. Will he resign today?

Mr. Smith: On my calculation, this is the 39th time that the hon. Gentleman has called for my resignation. I refer him to my first 38 answers.
The hon. Gentleman began by describing today's announcement as a "failure of public policy." I remind him that it was public policy put in place by the previous Government. It is their project that the Football Association has been valiantly trying to take forward.
The hon. Gentleman asked one or two questions. One related to the decision taken in December 1999 to take athletics out of the then scheme. I outlined in my initial answer why we took that decision, and thank goodness we did. If we had not taken that decision, we would now, as advocated by the hon. Gentleman, have no venue for the 2005 world athletics championships. We do have such a venue. Work is proceeding apace on that. The design work is well advanced and the Lee Valley stadium will be an excellent athletics-specific venue for those championships, with a long-term sustainable legacy for athletics as well.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the £120 million of lottery funds. Under the terms of the lottery agreement, if a national stadium does not proceed at Wembley, the money is returnable to Sport England for further use under the usual terms of the lottery.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether Wembley is the Government's preferred location. The answer is yes, because the Wembley site has been purchased with lottery funds. It is owned by the FA. It is the sensible place to start looking for alternative schemes, but we are not at this stage ruling out other options. We need to look first at Wembley, but other alternatives may emerge, at which we will want to look carefully and closely.
The hon. Gentleman says rather breezily that under the Government nothing seems to work any more. I refer him to the Cardiff Millennium stadium, the Eden project, Tate Modern, the British museum great court, the Magna project in Rotherham, the Science museum extension, the Lowry centre, the Walsall art gallery, the Manchester stadium and swimming pool and countless other projects—indeed, more projects than the number of times that the hon. Gentleman has demanded my resignation.

Mr. John Maxton: Given that one English football team has just spent almost £20 million on one player, and given the enormous sums that both the Premier League and the FA obtain from television to show football, would it not be totally wrong for the British taxpayer to subsidise the building of a national football stadium? If the Government have such money available, would it not be much better spent providing facilities and coaching for the many youngsters who want the play the game of football, rather than simply watch it?

Mr. Smith: We already provide substantial funds for precisely the purpose of coaching, training and educating young people across the board in sport, and that includes large amounts for the sport of football.
My hon. Friend is right that we need to be prudent in our use of taxpayers' money, which is why, when a specific request came to us last week for an immediate Government injection into the project, particularly given the scale of the project, which is far in excess of the estimated cost of any other stadium anywhere else in the world, we did not feel able to agree to it.

Mr. Bob Russell: I welcome the Conservative Opposition to their latest bandwagon. I have heard some things for the first time today.
The Secretary of State reeled off a list of great successes, but he seeks to deny any responsibility whatever for the Wembley fiasco. Surely he will not claim that what happened yesterday came as a surprise. Six months ago, the national media and the City warned us of what was likely to happen, and it happened yesterday. There is cross-party support for early-day motion 1, which, in case the Secretary of State has not read it, I will put on the record.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is not going to put it on the record.

Mr. Russell: The right hon. Gentleman will know that the cost of the scheme was £660 million and rising. What is the point of destroying arguably the most famous stadium in the world, the scene of our most successful English sporting triumph, and replacing it with a McDonald's arch?
The right hon. Gentleman also has responsibility for tourism and heritage, and he knows that the demolition of Wembley is not helpful to football. As has been pointed out, we need to look again at whether Wembley is the right place for such a stadium. Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that even a new Wembley stadium will still be accessed by inadequate rail, road and air


links? The case for looking elsewhere for a national stadium should be considered—if we need a new national stadium.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Secretary of State should have an opportunity to answer the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Smith: I must tell the hon. Gentleman that six months ago I publicly expressed alarm at the way in which the figure was escalating, as a result of which the FA took a much closer interest in the project, under the leadership of Adam Crozier. It put in Rodney Walker to try to sort the matter out, and he did a valiant job of trying to make the figures work, but, at the end of the day, he was not able to do so to the FA's satisfaction.
Refurbishment of the existing stadium has to be an option. It would impose constraints on the number of people who could be accommodated in the stadium, but it is something that we need to consider carefully and seriously.

Mr. Barry Gardiner: Does the Secretary of State share my incredulity that the FA, which, during the past two years, has had an income stream of £1.8 billion, and which, only on Monday, announced £48 million in sponsorship from Barclaycard for the Premier League, will not put up the money to adopt an equity stake in the project to the tune of £125 million? Does he also share my concern that £170 million worth of infrastructure projects that are already under way, such as the stadium corridor, the refurbishment of Wembley Park, Wimbley Central and Wembley Stadium stations, are put in jeopardy by the decision taken by the FA, and that regeneration projects to the value of £620 million in north-west London submitted on the back of the stadium development are also in jeopardy? I welcome the Government's assurance, as well as the assurance that he gave earlier, that Wembley is still the preferred location, but will he ensure that the voice of local people and the importance of regeneration to the local community are among the prime considerations of the Cabinet Committee when it considers the issue?

Mr. Smith: I can indeed give my hon. Friend that assurance. The regeneration aspects of the area surrounding the stadium, on which the Wembley taskforce, under the chairmanship of Sir Nigel Mobbs, is working hard, are extremely important for the whole of north-west London. We will bear those issues very much in mind as we now look as rapidly and sensibly as we can at the various alternatives.

Sir Norman Fowler: The Secretary of State says that he will review all the options for the national stadium. I hope that he will learn from experience and remember the disaster of the dome at Greenwich. Above all, I hope that one of these national projects can be situated north of London, preferably in Birmingham, where the transport is in place, the land is available and public support is absolutely assured.

Mr. Smith: I noted this morning that Birmingham city council made an interesting proposal of precisely this nature. As I said, we want first to consider what is

possible at Wembley, but we are not ruling out any other alternatives and we will look carefully at the propositions that are put to us.

Ms Claire Ward: Does my right hon. Friend accept that now is an appropriate time, given the review of Wembley stadium, to consider the future of Picketts Lock? As £120 million of public lottery money was originally put into Wembley stadium and a deal has been done for part of that money to go to Picketts Lock, is not it time, as we are going back to the drawing board, to consider the whole future for a stadium that can serve all our sports?

Mr. Smith: I am afraid that I cannot agree with my hon. Friend on that point. The 2005 world athletics championships have been bid for and won by London, and we must ensure that we provide a high-quality stadium for that event. The Lee Valley stadium at Picketts Lock is in the design phase. It is an extremely good design that gives us an opportunity to provide not only a good venue for the 2005 championships, but a high-class performance centre in perpetuity and very good community facilities for the whole of north and east London. That is a prize that is very much to be won, and we want to ensure that we win it.

Mr. Roger Gale: The Secretary of State will recall that the Prime Minister gave his personal support to the millennium dome and endorsed the view that it would form the first paragraph of his party's next election manifesto. He will also recall that the Prime Minister took personal charge of the foot and mouth crisis, and turned it into a disaster that has devastated rural communities. As football is rather important in England, will he give the House an assurance that the Prime Minister will not seek to take personal charge of the Wembley stadium?

Mr. Smith: I cannot accept either the conclusion or the premise of the hon. Gentleman's question.

Mr. Mike Gapes: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the decision taken to establish an athletics stadium in the Lee valley was absolutely right? When the athletics championships come to this country, many people in north, east and other parts of London will recognise that the Government made a wise decision.
On the future of the football stadium at Wembley, does he recognise that a large number of clubs in London, which are looking for new grounds, might be persuaded to reconsider moving to a new facility if the plan goes ahead?

Mr. Smith: I can wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend's endorsement of the Lee valley option for the 2005 world championships. As I said, work is well advanced. I am proud that we will have a purpose-built, dedicated athletics facility for those championships. One of the reasons why we were so successful in winning IAAF approval for the proposal in Paris last year was the fact that that facility would be designed and built specifically for athletics. We want to stick to that.

Mr. Nick Hawkins: The Secretary of State knows that, in the four years of the Labour


Government, I and other members of the all-party sports committee have repeatedly questioned him about the project. On many occasions, he has preened himself in front of not only hon. Members but the world's media and taken credit for what he described as a "magnificent" and "stunning" project. Does he now acknowledge that his ambitions are crumbling to dust, that his claims that the stadium is not a Government project and that Macavity's not there and his attempts to distance himself from events have no credibility not only in the House but in the eyes of the world? Does he further accept that he must take responsibility and resign?

Mr. Smith: No.

Mr. Doug Henderson: My right hon. Friend's friends in the north are fed up with projects being directed to the southern part of the country. We cannot prevent the private sector from investing where it wishes. However, in the case that we are considering, the private sector has decided that Wembley is not viable because of the additional costs that such a location incurs. If any public money, including lottery money, is to be used, can we have value for money by considering options in other parts of the country? They include refurbishing existing football stadiums and spreading international football and rugby league matches throughout the country. Other countries, such as Italy, do that.

Mr. Smith: As I have already said, we are prepared to consider other options, and I will bear my hon. Friend's comments in mind. I am delighted that major projects under the Department's umbrella will go to the north of England. I am especially pleased that the Baltic flour mills and the Gateshead music centre are well under way.

Mr. Andrew Stunell: I welcome the Secretary of State's comments about keeping options open. He mentioned the Commonwealth games in Manchester in 2002. They will be the first big international sporting event in this country after the foot and mouth crisis and will afford great opportunities for regenerating international tourism. Will he assure hon. Members that he will bear regeneration in mind when he considers the stadium, which could properly be located in Greater Manchester?

Mr. Smith: I agree with the hon. Gentleman's endorsement of the importance of the 2002 Commonwealth games, which constitute a major sporting event. They will draw people from all around the world and we can use them in our campaign to boost tourism in the sad aftermath of foot and mouth disease. The announcement that we made this morning of an additional £12 million for the British Tourist Authority's promotion budget will help in that task.

Ms Joan Walley: I welcome my right hon. Friend's work to try to find a solution. Football is our national spectator sport, and it is therefore essential to find a long-term, sustainable solution. We want not a stadium that will cost people far too much to visit, but a venue that ordinary football fans and their families can afford. I welcome my right hon. Friend's

decision not to rule anything in or out at present. I ask him to consider all the options. If Wembley cannot be refurbished, will he consider the principles of environmental sustainability in, for example, the distances that fans travel to and from football matches? Will he consider the possibility of a Wembley of the north, or even of the midlands?

Mr. Smith: We will consider all the options. I agree with my hon. Friend that is essential to find a good solution. We want a national stadium in England, and it is demonstrably possible to achieve that. The Millennium stadium in Cardiff was built for £126 million, a fifth of the estimated cost of the current Wembley project. Let us learn some lessons from the enormous success of that project and apply them to a national stadium for England.

Mr. Nigel Evans: Today is the fourth anniversary of the Labour Government, and what an appalling birthday present the Secretary of State has given the nation. Wembley stadium was world famous for all the right reasons, and the dome is world famous for all the wrong ones. If the new Wembley project had been a great success, the Government would have claimed credit for it. Now that it is an appalling fiasco, they are rubbing their hands and not taking any of the blame. In the dying days of this dreadful and appalling Government, will the Secretary of State—who obviously has a problem with the word "resign"—at least come to the Dispatch Box and say that he is sorry?

Mr. Smith: The one thing on which I can agree with the hon. Gentleman is that this is, indeed, the fourth anniversary of the election of this Government. I look forward to many more such anniversaries.

Mr. Peter L. Pike: My right hon. Friend will know that I have asked questions consistently on this subject over the past 10 years. Indeed, I had a question on it on Monday's Order Paper, which, unfortunately, we did not reach. I have always supported the need for a replacement Wembley. Wembley stadium, as it was, was not up to standard for the 21st century. We need a replacement that will provide good facilities for the majority of the crowd—ordinary people—and it need not cost £400 million. This is not the Government's fault, and they should tell the FA to get itself sorted out. We need a new national stadium, and I believe that it should be in London, and at Wembley. The FA needs to sort this out, because there is enough money in football to do so.

Mr. Smith: My hon. Friend has, indeed, been consistent in pursuing the need for a national stadium that will offer considerably better conditions than the rather dilapidated ones at the existing Wembley. We wish to see a national stadium, but we must get this right and we must not break everyone's bank in the process.

Mr. David Tredinnick: Will the Secretary of State accept that it was a terrible decision to take Wembley out of service before plans for a new stadium had been agreed? Will he also accept that he has totally underestimated the affection that the British public have for the old Wembley stadium? I say that as one who was lucky enough to go there with his father, on 30 July 1966, to watch that great World cup final. Is not the solution for


the Secretary of State to make good as best he can the circumstances at Wembley, and to take up the suggestion made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) and build a new stadium and all its ancillary facilities in Birmingham—in the heart of the midlands—to give the midlands a little? Is not it a fact that this problem is a national humiliation, and that it is happening on the fourth anniversary of this Government?

Mr. Smith: The decision to take Wembley out of service was taken by Wembley National Stadium Ltd. As I have already said, we shall consider a range of options to see what is most affordable and sustainable, both environmentally—as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley) mentioned—and economically.

Mr. Andrew Mackinlay: I find myself in a minority here. May I say, as a socialist, that although the Secretary of State's job is to promote sports and to provide all the academies, providing an affordable and sustainable—to use his words—national stadium for the industry of soccer is not core Government business, bearing in mind the critical issues now facing us in this country? In my view, it is good that the Government should try to facilitate and encourage this project, but not with public money or with too much energy.
As a socialist, I think that market forces should prevail in this case. We should call the bluff of the Football Association, because the money is there, and the FA will provide it and refurbish Wembley stadium. The one condition that I would like to lay down is that the towers should not be removed. Where else would a heritage building be allowed to have such features removed? I will tell the House why that is happening. It is because of the disproportionate clout and influence of the football industry. That needs to be curtailed, and the industry's bluff needs to be called.

Mr. Smith: I believe that it is the job of the Government to facilitate a good and sustainable solution to this matter. The twin towers are, indeed, deeply loved across the country, and that is why we will, of course, consider refurbishment as well as new-build options. We need to assess the aesthetics, the heritage, the football and the economic case for the various options in front of us.

Mr. Michael Fabricant: In the past few weeks, the Prime Minister has wrested control of foot and mouth away from the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and taken it on himself. Now we hear that control over this fiasco has been taken away from the Secretary of State and given to the Home Secretary. Given that, and the stinging criticism made by the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport of the Secretary of State's intervention in 1999 and other issues, how does he feel about his stewardship of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport over the past four years?

Mr. Smith: Very confident.

Mr. David Hinchliffe: Does it remain the aim of the Government to ensure that the new national stadium will cater for sports other than association football—in particular, of course, the great game of rugby league? My right hon. Friend was at Twickenham on

Saturday, with the Prime Minister and the Minister for Sport, for the rugby league Challenge cup final. For one or two of us—certainly those of us who are banned from rugby union for life—it was a rather uncomfortable experience. Can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that we will not have to go there again? He will be a popular man if he can ensure that rugby league is not played at Twickenham again.

Mr. Smith: The location for the rugby league cup final is a matter for the rugby league authorities, not for me. I suspect that my hon. Friend has influence in that quarter, and he may wish to make his views known there. However, his central point is important. It has always been envisaged, and should still be envisaged, that a national stadium should cater for football and for rugby league.

Mr. Owen Paterson: To prevent the project from collapsing altogether, what is the maximum expenditure of lottery or taxpayers' funds that the Secretary of State is prepared to endorse?

Mr. Smith: There has already been a contribution of £120 million of lottery funds to the purchase of the existing stadium.

Mr. Paterson: How much?

Mr. Speaker: Order. Let the Secretary of State answer.

Mr. Smith: We need to consider—

Mr. Paterson: It is an easy question. How much?

Mr. Speaker: Order. I tell the hon. Gentleman again: let the Secretary of State answer.

Mr. Smith: We need to consider all the various alternatives and the costs. We must also consider where the money can be raised. Those issues will be determined over the next few months.

Mr. Derek Wyatt: I wonder whether my right hon. Friend might ask the FA whether it might like to buy Picketts Lock. Rugby union, the sport with which I am familiar, rebuilt two thirds of Twickenham 10 years ago, based on the premise of debenture tickets and media sales of television rights. Am I right in thinking that debentures were ruled out completely for Wembley? If so, who made the decision?

Mr. Smith: The decisions about the methods of financing for the Wembley project were made by the FA and Wembley National Stadium Ltd. I am pleased that my hon. Friend has drawn attention to Twickenham, which represents an extremely good example of a sport deciding to reconstruct its stadium and doing so successfully by raising the money itself.

Mr. Steve McCabe: It is a pleasure, albeit a rare one, for me entirely to concur with the views of the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler). I seek a categoric assurance from my right hon. Friend: if Birmingham is able to show that it


can provide a first-class, easily accessible, brand-new stadium at a fraction of the cost of the Wembley project, will he ensure that no sleight of hand will be allowed to sabotage our efforts?

Mr. Smith: We shall consider any proposals that are put to us completely fairly and completely openly. We shall make an assessment based on what would provide the best stadium for football and rugby league and the most affordable cost.

Mr. Derek Twigg: Towards the end of last year, a deal to move the Wembley towers to Widnes in my constituency, where they would have formed part of the new national rugby league museum, was all but completed—the ink was nearly dry on the paper. If another opportunity to move the towers arises, will my right hon. Friend give his support for that?
I welcome my right hon. Friend's decision to take a fresh look at the problem of Wembley. We have heard nonsense from the Tories, who have put nothing of substance on the table today. It is right not to rule out other locations and my right hon. Friend might consider the north-west of England, where he will find the best rugby league and soccer teams in the country. Building a national stadium in the region would save supporters money as they would not have to travel back and forth to other venues.

Mr. Smith: There is a practical difficulty with moving the Wembley towers, because of the nature of their construction. However, if ingenious methods of moving them can be found and if the finance for the operation can be put together, such an option may be considered. I note my hon. Friend's bid for the north-west of England to host a national stadium. So far, we have had bids from Wembley itself, the north-west, the north-east, Birmingham and other parts of the midlands. Indeed, if market forces are operating, perhaps such competition is the best possible way to secure a good stadium at an affordable price.

Mr. David Taylor North-West Leicestershire): Was it not chronic and perverse metro-centricity that left the national showcase for the national game in a shabby stadium in an inaccessible, expensive and congested north-west London suburb when decades ago it could have been moved to the midlands or the north? Will my right hon. Friend look carefully at the potential of the east midlands to provide a home for the national game that is accessible, affordable and closer to the real supporters of football?

Mr. Smith: One of the good aspects of the Wembley project so far has been the commitment of all parties—the single regeneration budget panel, the Wembley taskforce and the mayor of London—to improving the accessibility of the Wembley area, and the regeneration of that area is one of the benefits that have been sought. I reiterate, however, what I have said to others: we will look at all the options, and we will consider alternative locations. We want to do the right thing and ensure that we end up with the best possible national stadium.

Points of Order

Mr. Jonathan Sayeed: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, of which I have given notice both to you and to the Minister concerned.
On 27 March I tabled two questions to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, to which I have received no substantive answer. Let me briefly explain. I asked the Minister from which countries whose standards of animal welfare, health or hygiene were lower than those of this country we were importing meat or poultry or their products. Neither question was difficult to answer—I should have thought that the Minister already had the information—and answering would have been neither time-consuming nor expensive; yet, 36 days later, there is still no answer.
The only reason I can think of for the fact that there has been no answer is that providing such an answer would be politically embarrassing. The Government are too embarrassed to admit that British farming has been put at a competitive disadvantage by the Government's failure to take action to ban products from countries whose standards are poorer than ours. The Government understand that products in those countries—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman's point of order is already clear to me; he is now setting out his reason for tabling his questions. Would he leave it at that?

Mr. Sayeed: May I finish, Mr. Speaker, very briefly? Can you confirm that my two questions were in order, and that it is unacceptable for a Government to delay answers deliberately just because those answers are politically embarrassing to them?

Mr. Speaker: If the Table Office accepted the two questions, they must have been in order.
All hon. Members are entitled to timeous replies, but it must also be appreciated that the Department to which the hon. Gentleman referred is under a great deal of strain. Members should realise that, and exercise some patience. I put it on record, however, that the hon. Gentleman is entitled to a timeous answer.

Mr. Gerald Howarth: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I hope that you will deem me to have given you notice of it—if not entirely formally—during Prime Minister's Question Time.
During that Question Time, Mr. Speaker, you will have heard a great many cries of "Disgraceful" from Conservative Members. I am sure you will accept that they were aimed not at the Chair but at the conduct of the Prime Minister.
It is indeed disgraceful that the Prime Minister has changed the rules of the House: instead of coming here twice a week, he now deigns to come only once a week. His constitutional duty is to answer questions from Members in all parts of the House, but particularly from the Leader of the Opposition. I am sure that you will agree, Mr. Speaker, that, in response to very serious points that were made by my right hon. Friend about Wembley stadium, the dome and so on, the Prime Minister was gratuitously abusive to my right hon. Friend, referring to


some remarks by some Conservative candidate—a matter for which the Prime Minister has no responsibility whatever. I am sure that you will agree that that behaviour tends to bring the House into disrepute with the public.
You referred to this matter in an earlier statement: Questions are out of order if they relate to Opposition party policies rather than Government responsibilities.
You went on to say:
Of course I recognise that over many years, Question Time has developed as a lively occasion on which political points are scored. That applies particularly to Prime Minister's Question Time. As I said last week, although the same constraints apply, I think it right to allow the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition a greater degree of latitude."—[Official Report, 14 February 2001; Vol. 363, c. 315.]
Given the widespread concern expressed by Opposition Members during Prime Minister's questions, to what extent do any constraints apply to the Prime Minister, who comes here only once a week? He should be answering questions instead of trying to score cheap points off my right hon. Friend on matters that do not relate to Prime Ministerial responsibilities.

Mr. David Winnick: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must first answer the point of order raised by the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth). Certainly, Prime Minister's Question Time this afternoon was very lively; I think that we can both agree with that. At all times, I must be able to use my judgment. The Prime Minister does not change the rules of the House. The House changes the rules. I am the custodian of those rules. I heard many hon. Members shouting, "Disgraceful." I did feel that some of those remarks were directed at me. I accept the hon. Gentleman's explanation that they were not directed at me—that is fine—but some were telling me to intervene and to stop the Prime Minister.
I will use my judgment at all times in the House. It is for me to use my judgment. Let me put it on the record that the worst thing that can happen is for hon. Members to tell me to intervene, because in doing so they are telling me how to do my job. Believe me: I will stay put and I will not intervene in those circumstances. I will use my judgment.
The hon. Gentleman has given me an opportunity to add that, when the House gets very noisy, it is unfair to those who are asking and, indeed, answering questions. The noise level has been very bad. I expect co-operation from hon. Members on both sides of the House during Prime Minister's questions and other parliamentary questions. The noise level can be far too high.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the matter. I am glad that he was not directing his cries at me, but he and others were out of order when they were shouting far too loudly in the Chamber. That goes for hon. Members on both sides of the House. It would be best to leave it at that. It was a noisy day. There was more than one excited hon. Member.

Mr. Andrew Tyrie: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have given notice in correspondence with you of the point that I want to raise, which connects directly with the point on which you have just ruled.
I had understood that the Prime Minister could only answer questions for which he was responsible and for which the Executive were responsible. We had a contentious case today. Six weeks ago, you ruled that a question on Short money to the Prime Minister was in order. But the House vote that pays for the Short money is not a matter for the Executive or in any way a matter for the Prime Minister. As you know, it is a matter for the House of Commons Commission, which you chair. I hesitated to raise this in the House on a point of order, so I wrote to you. If I may, I will read out part of your reply:
I am sure you will, on reflection, understand that it would not be appropriate for me to account to individual Members for my rulings or to enter into discussions about them.
Yours is a quasi-judicial rule, Mr. Speaker. Like judges, you are not required to provide any explanation, but explanations are generally given by judges of their decisions and rulings. I am rising now to ask whether, on reflection, you think it would be helpful to say whether the Prime Minister may now be asked questions on subjects for which he is palpably not responsible.

Mr. Speaker: I must say to the hon. Gentleman that that would not be helpful. If he wished to have a private discussion with me, that might be helpful.

Mr. David Winnick: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not the case, as Hansard will show, that previous Prime Ministers—Labour and Conservative—have used Question Time and every aspect of the agenda before them to try to defend the Government's record, and that the present Prime Minister has not departed from that? I refer you to 10 January, when the Prime Minister, quoting a Conservative candidate in Birmingham, said:
It might be thought a strange form of madness for someone to nail their colours to the Conservative mast at such a time of crisis for the party."—[Official Report, 10 January 2001; Vol. 360, c. 1073.]
No Conservative objected to that. There were points of order—from what may be described as the usual suspects—but no Conservative objected to what the Prime Minister said. What has been said today has been said previously by previous Prime Ministers. Conservative Members—certainly those who are new to the House—should consult Hansard over the years to see what those Prime Ministers have done.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is not raising a point of order.

Mr. John Bercow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In common with other hon. Members, I am extremely grateful for the ruling that you have just given and the guidance that you have thereby provided.
On a different point, on several dozen occasions in recent months, at a time when right hon. and hon. Members have been asking questions, at best tangentially related, if related at all, to Ministers' responsibilities, right hon. and hon. Members have busily been chatting to you while you have been occupying the Chair. I wonder if I might put it to you that it would be extremely helpful to the efficient dispatch of business and the retention of good


order if they did not do that, because we wish, of course, to have the full benefit at all times both of your personal attention and of your intellectual resources.

Mr. Speaker: That is a bit like the kettle calling the pot black, as the hon. Gentleman is one of the chatterers.

Mr. Steve McCabe: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Could it ever be in order for a Leader of the Opposition to be afforded special protection in this House during Question Time or any other occasion, no matter how exposed, vulnerable or pathetic that Leader might be?

Mr. Speaker: We now move on.

BILL PRESENTED

BANKING (INQUIRY)

Mr. Christopher Leslie, supported by Mr. Phil Hope, Mr. Terry Rooney, Mr. James Plaskitt, Ms Sally Keeble, Maria Eagle, Shona McIsaac and Ms Rosie Winterton presented a Bill to require the Financial Services Authority to carry out an inquiry into the operation of overdraft facilities provided by clearing banks and deposit-taking institutions; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on 11 May, and to be printed [Bill 91].

Bereavement Payments (Entitlement Conditions) (Amendment)

Mr. Roger Gale: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the timescale within which payments may be made to bereaved persons.
My Bill would require a change in the provisions of the Social Security (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 2) Regulations, laid on 14 March 1997. These regulations—which apply to widows' benefit and widows' payment, or bereavement allowance, as it became on 9 April this year—reduced from 12 months to three the prescribed time limit within which a claim for benefit may be made. The clock starts running, effectively, from the date of death of the spouse.
The need to change those regulations was drawn to my attention by the tragic case of my young constituent Mrs. Corinna Smith. I raised this matter in an Adjournment debate more than a year ago, on 6 April 2000, and I therefore propose only to give a summary of the details. On 2 June 1999, Alan Smith of Margate was working with highly inflammable chemicals which caught fire, inflicting terrible burns, from which Mr. Smith subsequently died on 18 June, leaving a 19-year-old widow, Corinna.
Mrs. Smith was required to identify her husband's body in the Broomfield hospital, Chelmsford and then, for a second time, at the Buckland hospital, Dover, to which his remains had been transferred and where a post mortem was carried out. Alan Smith's corpse was subsequently released by the Dover coroner, who provided to the undertakers the burial order necessary for a funeral to take place on 8 July 1999.
A postponed inquest into Alan Smith's death was eventually held on 12 October 1999 and the Chelmsford registrar was finally able to issue a death certificate on 14 October. That was posted to Mrs. Smith with a covering letter, saying:
Please find enclosed a Certificate of Registration of Death which should be completed on the reverse side and returned to the Department of Social Security. The leaflets enclosed may be of some assistance to you.
That was the first official document that Corinna Smith had received since the death of her husband four months earlier.
As Mrs. Smith was under 45, she did not qualify for a widows' pension and so she claimed the £1,000 widows' payment—the only assistance available to women facing her tragic circumstances—that she needed to help to repay money borrowed to pay for her husband's funeral and related expenses. In a pro forma notice issued by the local DSS she was told that
because more than three months had elapsed since the death of her husband
she would receive no money. A subsequent appeal to a tribunal delivered the decision that
there is no entitlement to a Widow's Payment in respect of a death occurring more than 3 months before the date of the claim.
I regarded, and continue to regard, the denial to Mrs. Smith of what was clearly a payment that should have been hers by right, as a considerable injustice and as an affront that added insult to dreadful injury. I engaged in an exchange of letters with the Secretary of State and


the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for City of York (Mr. Bayley). I received much jargon and avowed sympathy for my constituent's plight, including the crass assertion that the Minister could
appreciate that the time immediately after the death of a spouse will be traumatic and claiming may not be the main priority",
together with a rigid adherence to the book, which says that no payment will be made if a claim is made outside three months.
Given that the death certificate and letter of advice were not sent to Mrs. Smith until after the three-month deadline had passed, I assume that my constituent was expected either to read the fine print of every document in the DSS office or to have second sight in order to know of her entitlement. Without the necessary documentation and information it was not, of course, possible for her to claim in time.
My purpose in raising the matter in an Adjournment debate was not to win retrospective benefit which the Government were clearly determined, under rigid adherence to the regulations, to deny to Mrs. Smith, but to urge the Secretary of State to change the regulations so that no other woman would have to suffer, in similar circumstances, the indignity suffered by my constituent. In response, the Government Department charged with the duty of protecting the most vulnerable in society made it plain that, not to put too fine a point on it, my proposed and simple solution was "not thought of here", and it would not budge.
Replying to the debate, another Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Angela Eagle)—who, I am pleased to see, is in her place this afternoon—acknowledged that
in Mrs. Smith's case there were good reasons for the delay in claiming benefit
and that
It was not her fault that the inquest was adjourned and that, by the time that it … took place … the three months had elapsed".
The Minister also offered, again, the helpful observation that
at a time of traumatic loss, a widow may not be best placed emotionally or otherwise to make the business of claiming benefit
the first priority. But the Government's bottom line was that, as the three-month time limit is
an absolute rule, the reason for the delay is immaterial."—[Official Report, 6 April 2000; Vol. 347, c. 1259.]
This House of Commons has been devalued by an arrogant Executive, but if it has one useful purpose left it is, when necessary, to challenge and to change absolute rules—and that is what this Bill is about. I have made it plain that the regulations were laid by the last Conservative Government. They have been implemented and enforced by the present Government. As we all know,

in politics there is a law of unintended consequences, and I do not for one moment believe that the authors of this nonsense intended to deny the thankfully very few Corinna Smiths of this world a pitiful bereavement benefit in their hour of need.
When I began this crusade I did not seek to apportion blame. However, it has become apparent that this Secretary of State and his Ministers are determined to perpetuate the injustice.
On 9 April, the widows' payment was replaced with the bereavement benefit, and the amount involved was increased from £1,000 to £2,000. It would have been easy to change the regulations at that time and, instead of starting the three-month clock running from the moment of death, to start it from the time when the death certificate—and the vital advice that goes with it—is issued.
That would have been easy, but this Secretary of State has chosen not to do it. It is to bring about that very simple change, and to make sure that others in the future are not denied Corinna Smith's widow's mite, that I seek leave today to introduce this Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Roger Gale, Mr. Peter Bottomley, Mrs. Helen Brinton, Mr. Ian Bruce, Sir Sydney Chapman, Mr. Nigel Jones, Mr. Andrew Rowe, Rev. Martin Smyth, Mr. Ian Stewart and Mrs. Ann Winterton.

BEREAVEMENT PAYMENTS (ENTITLEMENT CONDITIONS) (AMENDMENT)

Mr. Roger Gale accordingly presented a Bill to amend the time scale within which payments may be made to bereaved persons: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 11 May, and to be printed [Bill 92].

STANDING COMMITTEE ON REGIONAL AFFAIRS

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 117(6) (Standing Committee on Regional Affairs),

That—

(1) the matter of raising the economic performance of the regions and tackling regional imbalances, being a matter relating to regional affairs in England, be referred to the Standing Committee on Regional Affairs;

(2) the committee meet at half-past One o'clock on Thursday 10th May at Westminster to consider the matter referred to it under paragraph (1) above; and

(3) the proceedings at that meeting be interrupted at Four o'clock.[Mr. Dowd.]

Question agreed to.

Regulatory Reform

[Relevant documents: The First Special Report of the Deregulation Committee, Session 2000–2001, on the Handling of Regulatory Reform Orders, HC328.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker(Mr. Michael Lord): Before we proceed, I should tell the House that Mr. Speaker has selected amendments (a) and (b) in the name of the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth).

The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr. Graham Stringer): I beg to move,
That the following changes be made to the Standing Orders of the House—
A. That Standing Order No. 141 (Deregulation Committee) be repealed and the following new Standing Order be made—

Deregulation and Regulatory Reform Committee

(1) There shall be a select committee, called the Deregulation and Regulatory Reform Committee, to examine—

(i) every document containing proposals laid before the House under section 3 of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 (the 1994 Act) or under section 6 of the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 (the 2001 Act);
(ii) every draft order proposed to be made under section 1 of the 1994 Act or section 1 of the 2001 Act; and
(iii) every subordinate provisions order or draft of such an order made or proposed to be made under sections 1 and 4 of the 2001 Act.

(2) The committee shall report to the House, in relation to every proposals document referred to in paragraph 1(i) of this order, either

(a) that a draft order in the same terms as the proposals should be laid before the House; or
(b) that the proposals should be amended before a draft order is laid before the House; or
(c) that the order-making power should not be used in respect of the proposals.

(3) The committee shall report to the House, in relation to every draft order referred to in paragraph 1(ii) of this order, its recommendation whether the draft order should be approved.

(4) The committee may draw the special attention of the House to any subordinate provisions order or draft order referred to in paragraph 1(iii) of this order, and may report its opinion whether or not the order or draft order should be approved or, as the case may be, annulled.

(5) The committee may report to the House on any matter arising from its consideration of the said proposals, draft orders or subordinate provisions orders.

(6)(A) In its consideration of proposals the committee shall consider in each case whether the proposals

(a) appear to make an inappropriate use of delegated legislation;
(b) remove or reduce a burden or the authorisation or requirement of a burden;
(c) continue any necessary protection;
(d) have been the subject of, and take appropriate account of, adequate consultation;
(e) impose a charge on the public revenues or contain provisions requiring payments to be made to the Exchequer or any government department or to any local or public authority in consideration of any licence or consent or of any services to be rendered, or prescribe the amount of any such charge or payment;
(f) purport to have retrospective effect;
(g) give rise to doubts whether they are intra vires;

(h) require elucidation, are not written in plain English or appear to be defectively drafted;
(i) appear to be incompatible with any obligation resulting from membership of the European Union.
(B) In the case of proposals presented under the 2001 Act, the committee shall also consider whether the proposals:
(j) prevent any person from continuing to exercise any right or freedom which he might reasonably expect to continue to exercise;
(k) satisfy the conditions of proportionality between burdens and benefits set out in sections 1 and 3 of the Act;
(l) satisfy the test of desirability set out in section 3(2)(b) of the Act;
(m) have been the subject of, and take appropriate account of, estimates of increases or reductions in costs or other benefits which may result from their implementation; or
(n) include provisions to be designated in the draft order as subordinate provisions;
and in the case of the latter consideration the committee shall report its opinion whether such a designation should be made, and to what parliamentary proceedings any subordinate provisions orders should be subject.

(7) In its consideration of draft orders, the committee shall consider in each case all such matters set out in paragraph (6) of this order as are relevant and the extent to which the Minister concerned has had regard to any resolution or report of the Committee or to any other representations made during the period for parliamentary consideration.

(8) In its consideration of any subordinate provisions order the committee shall in each case consider whether the special attention of the House should be drawn to it on any of the grounds on which (in accordance with paragraph 1(B) of Standing Order No. 151 (Statutory Instruments (Joint Committee)) the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments may draw the attention of the House to a statutory instrument; and if the committee is of the opinion that any such order or draft order should be annulled, or, as the case may be, should not be approved, they shall report that opinion to the House.

(9) The committee shall consist of eighteen members.

(10) The quorum of the committee shall be five.

(11) Unless the House otherwise orders, each Member nominated to the committee shall continue to be a member of it for the remainder of the Parliament.

(12) The committee shall have power—

(a) to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place within the United Kingdom, and to report from time to time;
(b) to appoint specialist advisers either to supply information which is not readily available or to elucidate matters of complexity within the committee's order of reference;
(c) to appoint a sub-committee, of which the quorum shall be two, which shall have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, and to adjourn from place to place within the United Kingdom;
(d) to communicate its evidence and any other documents relating to matters of common interest to any committee appointed by this House and to any committee appointed by the Lords to examine deregulation and regulatory reform proposals and draft orders.

(13) The committee and the sub-committee shall have leave to meet concurrently with any select committee appointed by the Lords to examine deregulation and regulatory reform proposals and draft orders and any sub-committee thereof.

(14) The committee and the sub-committee shall have the assistance of the Counsel to the Speaker and, if their Lordships think fit, the Counsel to the Lord Chairman of Committees.

(15) The committee and the sub-committee shall have power to invite Members of the House who are not members of the committee to attend meetings at which witnesses are being examined and such Members may, at the discretion of the chairman, ask questions of


those witnesses; but no Member not being of the committee shall otherwise take part in the proceedings of the committee or sub-committee, or be counted in the quorum.

(16) It shall be an instruction to the committee that before reporting either

(a) that any proposal should be amended before the draft order is laid before the House, or

(b) that the order-making power should not be used in respect of any proposal, or

(c) that any draft order should not he approved,
it shall afford to any government department concerned an opportunity of furnishing orally or in writing to it or to the sub-committee appointed by it such explanations as the department think fit.

(17) It shall be an instruction to the committee that it report on every draft order (not being a subordinate provisions order) not more than fifteen sitting days after the draft order was laid before the House, indicating in the case of draft orders which it recommends should be approved whether its recommendation was agreed without a division.

B. That the following amendments be made to Standing Order No. 18 (Consideration of draft deregulation orders)—

(1) Title, after 'deregulation', insert 'etc.'.

(2) Line 1, after 'Deregulation', insert 'and Regulatory Reform'.

(3) Line 3, after 'Deregulation', insert 'and Regulatory Reform'.

(4) Line 5, after '1994', insert 'or under section 1 of the Regulatory Reform Act 2001'.

C. That the following amendment be made to Standing Order No. 98 (Scottish Grand Committee (delegated legislation)—

Line 15, after 'order', insert 'or regulatory reform order'.

D. That the following amendment be made to Standing Order No. 115 (Northern Ireland Grand Committee (delegated legislation))—

Line 15, after 'order', insert 'or regulatory reform order'.

E. That the following amendment be made to Standing Order No. 118 (Standing committees on delegated legislation))

Line 14, after 'order', insert 'or regulatory reform order'.

F. That the following amendment be made to Standing Order No. 151 (Statutory Instruments (Joint Committee))

Line 25, after '1994', insert 'or under section 1 of the Regulatory Reform Act 2001, or any subordinate provisions order made or draft proposed to be made under that Act'.

G. That the following amendment be made to Standing Order No. 152 (Select committees related to government departments)—

Line 33, after 'Deregulation', insert 'and Regulatory Reform'.

It is now a little over three weeks since the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 reached the statute book. The debates on the Bill as it went through Parliament, both here and in another place, were for the most part characterised by thoughtful and well-informed contributions. The result, I believe, is an excellent tool for regulatory reform. The Government have already published six consultation documents and I fully expect to see more issued soon.
As was made clear in debate on the Bill, the superaffirmative process that applies to deregulation orders and now to regulatory reform orders is a model of thorough parliamentary scrutiny. In order to ensure that the superaffirmative order-making process remains effective, we need to amend the two Standing Orders now before the House so that they cover all the innovations introduced by what is now the Regulatory Reform Act 2001.

It is therefore with considerable satisfaction that I am proposing today changes to the Standing Orders which will rename the current Deregulation Committee and

permit it to consider regulatory reform proposals as well as to complete its scrutiny of those remaining proposals for deregulation orders that are currently before Parliament.

Throughout the debates on the Bill, I stressed that it was a matter for Parliament, and not the Government, to decide the manner in which the Committee would consider proposals for regulatory reform. I am therefore happy to say that the Standing Orders that we are considering today reflect very closely those suggested by the Committee in its first special report of this Session, published on 16 March.

I am sure that it will be of interest to the House if I outline briefly the procedure for the scrutiny of regulatory reform orders. The 2001 Act requires that the relevant Minister undertake extensive public consultation on the proposal in question. Under section 5, this consultation m£
ust involve all interested parties, including those that might be adversely affected by the proposals.

The process is, therefore, front loaded, by which I mean that the onus is very much on the Minister to work the policy through fully. The Minister proposing a piece of regulatory reform would need to think through the possible consequences thoroughly and then convince the Scrutiny Committee of the merits of the case. That can only be done on the basis of evidence gathered during the consultation process.

Let me make it clear that the purpose of this extensive public consultation is not only to seek views on the policy but to elicit evidence against a prescribed list of matters without which the proposal cannot legally go ahead. During Third Reading, I placed in the Libraries of the House a draft of an advisory note for Departments on consultation. We will shortly be issuing the final version. I believe that it would be helpful if I reiterated some of the key points.

The consultation document must include all aspects of the proposal. Each consultation on a prospective regulatory reform order must elicit all the information needed to complete the explanatory document that the Minister must lay alongside the proposed order. The consultation responses will need to provide evidence to support any assertions. The Government therefore accept the need for Departments to structure their consultation documents so as to follow the list of matters at section 6(2) of the Act—in particular, the extent to which burdens are to be removed or whether any burdens are to be restated or created; whether any proposal could prevent any person from continuing to exercise any right or freedom that he or she might reasonably expect to continue to exercise, and if so, how he or she is to be enabled to continue to exercise that right or freedom; whether the proposals would create a burden affecting any person in carrying on an activity, and if so, how the conditions concerning proportionality, fair balance and desirability are satisfied; whether any provisions of the proposed order are designated as subordinate provisions, and if so, why they are being so designated; whether any savings or increases in cost are estimated to result from the proposals, and if so, the reasons why savings or increases in costs should be expected; and if it is practicable, the documents should make an estimate of that amount and how it is calculated, and any benefits—other than savings in cost—that are expected to flow from the implementation of the proposals.

The reason for this degree of detail in consultation documents has as much to do with the specific requirements of the Act as with the Standing Orders of the Scrutiny Committee. Consultation documents on proposals for regulatory reform have two purposes. First, they must set out the proposal against the tests and safeguards in the order-making process in such a way that the intended audience can readily supply the information that the Minister needs to satisfy himself and the Scrutiny Committees that the proposal meets those tests and safeguards. Secondly, they must explain clearly and comprehensibly the policy on which views are being sought, including the implications for the devolved Administrations. These aims may result in a longer consultation document than would otherwise emerge with a straightforward consultation exercise aimed at developing policy.

The Standing Orders require the Scrutiny Committees to pay special attention to the inclusiveness of the consultation process, such as the extent to which it captured the views of those who might be adversely affected, whether directly or indirectly, by the proposal. That is obviously entirely right. It means that the emphasis must be on a wide distribution, covering representative bodies, consumer bodies, trade unions, employers' representatives—including representatives of small business and the Small Business Service—and other likely interest groups. The document should be expressed in a way that all these different interests can understand. It must include sufficient background material for a newcomer to understand the proposal. It should not assume any prior knowledge.

During debate, undertakings were given that highly charged or politically controversial measures are—and will remain—better suited to the Floor of the House. The consultation process will be key to establishing whether a proposal is suitable to enactment as an RRO or whether it would be best dealt with as a Bill. Of course, some proposals, such as the trade union check-off deregulation order, may initially appear controversial but prove amenable to the consensual nature of the order-making process, based, as it is, on the careful gathering of evidence which is weighed up by a scrupulous and independent Committee. The Standing Orders before the House are key to ensuring that the Committee can continue in that vein. Committees have in the past rejected proposals on grounds of inadequate consultation, and the Government fully expect them to maintain their vigilance.

After the consultation process, the proposals are put before the Committee under section 8 of the Act. The Committee considers them for 60 days. The Standing Orders outline the areas that the Committee will study, which reflect the tests and safeguards contained in the Act. We discussed those at considerable length at various stages and I have already run through them today.

At the end of the 60-day period, the Committee will issue a report on the proposals and it is for the Minister to decide how to respond. However, there is a firm Government commitment—which I am happy to repeat—that they will not proceed with an order in the face of the Committee's opposition. The Standing Orders then lay down a further 15 days for the consideration of the

Government's proposal, as amended if appropriate. At the end of those 15 days, the Committee will report again and the matter passes for the approval of the House.

If the Committee's report is favourable, the question to approve the draft order is put forthwith without debate. If the Committee's report is favourable but it had divided on the issue, the question to approve the draft order is put after a maximum of one and a half hours of debate. If the Committee's report is not favourable, the question to approve the draft order is put after a maximum of three hours of debate. Again, I stress that that is what is laid down in the Standing Orders. In practice, the Government have made a commitment not to proceed with an order following an unfavourable report.

Experience with the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 has shown that this is an excellent system for scrutinising orders. The Committee's input has frequently been invaluable and the Government have changed many of their proposals in the light of their comments. It has also, on occasion, taken us to task on what it has seen as inadequate consultation on deregulation proposals, and the Government have always taken whatever corrective steps the Committee has recommended.

Although the useful life of the 1994 Act has come to an end, the procedures that governed its use have stood the test of time. The requirements in the Act and the effect of the Standing Orders ensure that the emphasis is on getting it right first time. As a result, it would, for instance, simply not be possible for a Minister to introduce a skeleton order, nor would the Minister be able to make large-scale and piecemeal amendments while the proposal was before the House for scrutiny.

Departments will, of course, also need to address at an early stage the implications of the three devolution settlements for their policy proposals. They must be reflected in the consultation document. Although not expressly provided for, the Standing Orders, as drafted, will ensure that the Scrutiny Committee can address any devolution-related issues when it considers the vires of each proposal. The devolution settlements are reflected in the vires of the Act, and the Committee is charged specifically with considering vires questions.

I am sure that it will be of interest to the House if I outline briefly the changes proposed by the Committee concerning existing Standing Orders Nos. 18 and 141 and the other minor modifications that I am suggesting he included in the Committee's draft. The new Standing Orders take account of two issues. The first is the advent of the Regulatory Reform Act 2001. The Standing Orders before us reflect the new and strengthened criteria against which proposals will be judged.

Secondly, the Standing Orders take account of the fact that proposals under the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act that were placed before Parliament before the 2001 Act received Royal Assent are still being considered by the Committee. Four such orders are currently before Parliament. Once they have been dealt with, there will need to be further minor changes to the Standing Orders to reflect the final disappearance of the 1994 power. This will not need to take place until later in the autumn.

I have said, the orders before us differ slightly from those drafted by the Committee in its first special report. Most of the changes are merely consequential to ensure that references to other Standing Orders remain consistent. The only change of substance is the addition


of paragraph (1) in article (6)(B). This concerns the desirability test, which was—as hon. Members will remember—added by the Liberal Democrats during the progress of the 2001 Act through another place. It makes sense to include it in the Standing Orders along with the other safeguards contained in the Act. I hope that members of the Committee will welcome this small change.

Under these Standing Orders, the Committee members will focus on the new safeguards in the Act. They must ensure that no proposal removes any necessary protection or deprives people of any rights or freedoms that they could reasonably expect to continue to enjoy. They must test to see whether any burdens imposed are proportionate to the benefits expected from them. Any orders imposing burdens must also strike a fair balance between the public interest and the interest of those affected by the burden, and the extent to which they remove burdens or bring other benefits must make the proposals as a whole desirable.

The Standing Orders also include some matters that are not on the face of the Act. For example, the Committee will consider whether proposals are in plain English. Hon. Members will remember that I resisted including such a provision in the Act itself. I was, and remain, concerned that legal clarity should not be sacrificed for superficial simplicity. I know that many Committee members are keen to highlight the issue, and I have no objection to its inclusion in the Standing Orders.

Mr. Peter L. Pike: The Committee welcomes that. Although we included the provision in the draft Standing Orders, we did not expect it to be accepted.

Mr. Stringer: I am sure that the Committee's interest in plain English will give rise to interesting debates between its members and the lawyers who advise Departments. That should improve regulatory reform orders. The Committee is required only to "consider" the issue. As I agree that plain English is desirable wherever possible, I am happy for it to do that.
I am sure the House will agree that the Standing Orders are evidence of the Committee's positive input to the process. It is based on consensus, and the Government have been at pains to involve the Committee as much as possible. It has been an exemplary process, and I pay tribute to the Committee's work.
I note that the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) has tabled amendments. Amendment (a) would increase the Committee's quorum from five to seven. Its size and quorum remain unchanged from those that applied under the previous Administration. Had the Committee suggested a change—which it did not—the Government would have taken its request seriously. The fact that the matter was not raised suggests that there is no need for the quorum to change for those people who are involved in the Committee.

Mr. Eric Forth: rose—

Mr. John Bercow: rose—

Mr. Stringer: I give way first to the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst.

Mr. Forth: That is an interesting line of argument. According to the Minister, it is enough if those directly

involved do not believe that the quorum should be changed. However, I believe that the House is entitled to take a view of the duties and responsibilities of Committee members, independent of people with a vested interest. I hope he will accept that it is absolutely proper that I should seek the opinion of the House rather than of Committee members, who might want to slide out of attendance in greater numbers than my quorum would allow them to.

Mr. Stringer: We are undertaking that process now by considering the views of the House. I am using the fact that the Committee did not think it necessary to change the quorum to support my argument. Other arguments could be used in favour of the current quorum. For example, it is an important consideration that all Select Committees in the past have accepted it.

Mr. Bercow: Further to the point made by my right hon. Friend, not only are the views of existing Committee members not the only consideration, they are—frankly—scarcely a consideration at all. I put it to the Minister, who has lived a bit, that it is hardly a surprise that a tiny coterie of individuals—who for most purposes are otherwise largely, if not totally, obscure—should wish to preserve and enhance what pettifogging influence they may have, and are thus likely to oppose an increase in the quorum. As the late Enoch Powell would have said, that is so blindingly obvious that only an extraordinarily clever person could fail to see it.

Mr. Stringer: I repeat that we are not relying totally on the Committee's opinions in reaching our conclusions. I remind the hon. Gentleman that on Second Reading, Report and Third Reading, it was brought to the attention of hon. Members that Conservatives were the worst attenders of the Committee. Of course all hon. Members have a right to have their views heard. In particular, it is important to take into account the opinions of people who have had the responsibility of serving as Committee members.

Mr. Pike: Is it not important to remember that the quorum was fixed by the Conservative Government when the Committee was set up?

Mr. Bercow: I could not give a stuff about that.

Mr. Pike: Would it not be useful to note the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) and the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) as possible volunteers for the Committee after the election? They might well want to help to make up the quorum.

Mr. Stringer: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is incumbent on hon. Members who want to amend a Standing Order to make the case for a positive change. It is interesting that the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) said from a sedentary position that he did not give a stuff about what quorum the previous Government had set. We think it important that they set that standard, and we are satisfied with it.


We have not heard a good case for change, and we have heard nothing from members of the Committee about a change.

Mr. Brian Cotter: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Stringer: I wanted to move on, but I will take the intervention.

Mr. Bercow: There is plenty of time.

Mr. Cotter: I do not want to labour the point, but is it not bizarre that Conservative Members are talking about increasing the quorum when I, as a member of the Committee, know that we had frequently to make up the quorum without their attendance?

Mr. Stringer: That is a very good point. I said earlier that Conservative Members' attendance of the Committee has not been good. One conclusion that we can draw from the amendments and the comments that have been made is that Conservative Members do not want the Committee to function.
I must tell the hon. Member for Buckingham that I wanted to make progress because his colleague on the Front Bench, the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), has courteously told me that he has a prior engagement, and I should like to finish my remarks to give him time to speak.
The second amendment seeks to raise from two to four the quorum of the sub-Committee that could be formed. Again, the proposals do not alter existing procedure. The sub-Committee could of course report only to the Committee proper, for which the usual quorum would be required. The Deregulation Committee did not recommend any change to the status quo.
I do not believe that the Standing Orders would benefit in any way from the amendments in the name of the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, so in the light of the small changes that I have outlined, I am happy to accept the Committee's draft for the Standing Orders, and I commend it to the House.

Mr. Andrew Lansley: I am grateful to the Minister for his understanding of my requirement to be elsewhere in the House. I intend no discourtesy if I have to leave the Chamber shortly after the introductory speeches, but of course I hope to return in time for the winding up of the debate.
As the Minister said, we have recently debated some of the important measures in the Regulatory Reform Act 2001. As I said in those proceedings, the powers are exceptional and go beyond what was intended in the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994. The initial consultation documents issued in anticipation of Regulatory Reform Act orders show clearly that they will comprise not only deregulatory measures but those for re-regulation and restructuring of regulation, and will incur expenditure.
For example, it is intended that the vaccine damage payment scheme should be reformed and extended by way of those orders. The review of fire safety legislation that we have discussed will no doubt proceed. That is a large, comprehensive measure, and it is important that we get it right. We are dealing with the amendment of primary legislation through statutory instruments, and the Committee's important work on that should not be under-estimated.
I agree with my right hon. and hon. Friends that the Committee's record of attendance and much of its activity, valuable though it has undoubtedly been, is of little account. It has been of limited effect in the past few years because the Government have taken relatively few deregulatory initiatives since 1997. The fact that there will now be a volume of orders to be considered means that we are coming to the matter afresh, with these new powers, and it behoves us to look forward rather than back. The addition of regulatory reform to the Committee's title is itself resonant of its wider powers and purposes, so we have to make sure that it is effective.
In that context, once again we touch on the membership of Select Committees, not just issues concerning the quorum and so on; I am sure that my right hon. and hon. Friends will deal with that. I do not propose to reiterate arguments made by the Opposition in debates about the selection of members of Select Committees. However, it is important to recognise that there is a special need for Members chosen to serve on the Deregulation and Regulatory Reform Committee to have a critical approach to draft orders and a sense of independence. I hope that, when the Committee is reconstituted, it is borne in mind that a sense of independence and willingness to scrutinise is vital.
We are pleased to see the Chairman of the Deregulation Committee in the Chamber and, when he contributes to the debate, I am sure that he will stress the need for a critical approach and independence, and for the Committee to be reconstituted quickly after the general election, whenever it takes place. There is a 60-day limit on the work of the Committee and, although the clock stops for an election, it restarts immediately after, so it is vital for the Committee to be in place and able to discharge that function.
The Committee's effectiveness, as I am sure that the Minister recognises, will largely depend on the quality of the preliminary consultation under section 5 of the 2001 Act and, indeed, the quality of the document laid before Parliament. I have made points in Committee and on Report about the requirements for preliminary consultation. I am therefore grateful to the Minister for the further changes that he has made in the advisory notes to Departments about consultation documents, and I look forward to any future draft that he may introduce.
The Minister referred to consultation documents that have already been issued. I have addressed the first five, but I note that the sixth, which relates to removing the 20-partner limit and was issued by the Department of Trade and Industry the day before Report and Third Reading, seems to have avoided the errors—perhaps that is too harsh, inconsistencies may be a better word—that characterised previous consultation documents. In particular, the preliminary consultation document does not attempt to prejudge Ministers' opinions on proportionality in the relationship between burdens imposed and benefits


derived; the desirability test to which the Minister referred; and the fair balance test in the Act between the public interest and the private interests affected.

Mr. Bercow: My hon. Friend has rightly highlighted the importance of proportionality and fair balance. Does he not agree that it would be useful to gain from the Government an understanding of whether they intend that equal weight should be given to every word in the title of the Committee? Specifically, what are we to expect from a Committee that was previously called the Deregulation Committee and is now to be called the Deregulation and Regulatory Reform Committee? Does my hon. Friend, fair-minded specimen though he invariably is, not suspect, like me, that we are likely to get rather more of the latter than of the former?

Mr. Lansley: The weight and meaning of words should be considered carefully. The Minister may, or may not, wish to speculate on that, but I imagine that the title proposed for the Committee recognises its responsibility to continue to consider orders introduced under the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 as well as orders that will be introduced under the 2001 Act. When, in due course, the Committee comes to consider only orders introduced under the 2001 Act, no doubt the intention is that it will change its name to the regulatory reform Committee. If Ministers ever get the chance to introduce such a further revised Standing Order, my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr Bercow) and I will, of course, observe and criticise it.

Mr. Pike: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is right. The first special report suggested that in the first instance the Committee should be called the Deregulation and Regulatory Reform Committee, but recognised that the name would probably be changed in due course. Whether or not it will, I cannot predict, but there has been no attempt to amend its name today. Two or three amendments have been tabled, but none proposes a change in the Committee's name.

Mr. Lansley: I am interested in the hon. Gentleman's comments. If I am to infer front what he says that the Committee, as well as Ministers, may in due course wish to rename the Committee the Regulatory Reform Committee, I would be critical of that. In the light of the passage of the Act, it seems reasonable that the Committee has a job to do in respect of both deregulation and regulatory reform. If titles matter—sometimes they do—it would be better for the Committee to retain the reference to deregulation, because the prime purpose of the measure was always to be deregulation and ought to be so.
I revert to the point that I was making about preliminary consultation. I note with interest that the Department of Trade and Industry's most recent consultation document on removing the 20-partner limit does not seek to prejudge the regulatory impact assessment, and proposes that that should be put together in the light of consultations. Sometimes that is desirable, although it is interesting that no attempt has been made to quantify in advance the extent of the impact.
We should not cavil about that. However, when the Minister comes to consider the form of advice to Departments about the preparation of the document under

section 6 of the 2001 Act, I hope that he will encourage Departments, in the light of the preliminary consultation, to be as specific as they can about the impacts that proposed orders will cause to occur.
In particular, those impacts should be disaggregated as far as possible between persons affected. The fair balance test, as the Minister will recall, must balance the public interest with private interests. As the Minister knows, the public interest is often expressed in terms of large numbers of people or public bodies, for whom there is a marginal benefit, as distinct from persons affected, for whom there might be substantial detriments and disbenefits. It is important that such information should be available to the Committee for its work. If the impacts are disaggregated, the Committee can consider the specific impacts on categories of persons and establish whether it is reasonable for them to suffer such detriment, in addition to all the other tests that must be applied.
It will not surprise the Chairman of the Deregulation Committee or the Minister that I hope that when the Committee comes to do its work under the Standing Orders, it will attach special importance to the deregulatory effects. The Committee has two opportunities to do that, under paragraphs 6(A)(b) and 6(B)(1), which give an opportunity for the Committee to consider the extent to which the measures proposed will have a deregulatory impact. I am glad that the Liberal Democrats in another place joined my noble Friends in stressing that point, and that Ministers took it on board.
Before I conclude, I shall deal with the undertakings that Ministers have given and seek the Minister's further response. I also have a number of questions. First, the Minister has been helpful in reiterating the intention that Ministers will not proceed against the advice of the Deregulation and Regulatory Reform Committee. Does that undertaking extend to accepting that where the Committee proposes amendments to an order before it is made, which is one of the conclusions that the Committee can reach, those amendments will be incorporated?
My second question relates to the subordinate provisions orders. On that new responsibility for the Committee, will the Minister give an undertaking that where the Committee recommends that an order should be made by affirmative procedure, Ministers will respond positively to such a recommendation?
Thirdly, I was interested to hear that the Committee may divide on an order. I will be corrected if I am wrong but, to my recollection, that has not occurred in the past. However, such a Division on a matter of substance may show that it was more controversial than was anticipated. Ministers have said that orders will not be made in relation to large and controversial measures, and I suspect that any order which is substantially controversial should not be made using this procedure, so I hope that, in the event of such a Division, they will undertake to consider whether to proceed, without necessarily giving each Committee member a veto. The matter would have to be weighed and if there were a suggestion that it was highly controversial it should not necessarily be proceeded with.
Standing Order 6(A)(i) states that the Committee will consider whether the proposals
appear to be incompatible with any obligation resulting from membership of the European Union.
That has been reflected unchanged in the new Standing Orders. However, I do not recall hearing how the Committee would consider, if it were thought relevant,


compatibility or otherwise with the Human Rights Act 1998. Has the Minister considered whether that should also be reflected in the Standing Orders?

Mr. Stringer: The Government gave assurances that regulatory reform orders would have a statement attached to them, as Bills do now, expressing the Minister's view that they are compatible with the Human Rights Act 1998. The House has set up a special Committee to test such assertions.

Mr. Lansley: I am grateful to the Minister but, presumably, it has not been Ministers' intention to bring forward legislation using the deregulation legislation that they believe is incompatible with our obligations resulting from membership of the EU. The question is whether, since the Committee has a role in questioning other opinions of Ministers, the Committee has any role in testing that assertion of compatibility made by the Minister. The hon. Gentleman or the Chairman of the Committee may wish to reflect on that further.
I accept that the Minister was responding to our debates when he suggested that the Committee should consider whether orders were written in plain English, but the points made in Committee concerned not simply the quality and clarity of the language, but whether all the measures had been taken which could be taken to achieve simplification in legislation. Will the Minister consider further whether the Committee will be able to consider simplification as well as clarity.
I was surprised to see that, although the proposed Standing Orders include a series of additional considerations following the Regulatory Reform Act 2001, they do not appear to require the Committee to consider inconsistencies and anomalies, which the House will recall is one of the purposes of section 1 of that Act for which orders may be made.
If an order is concerned principally with the removal of inconsistencies and anomalies, alongside the reduction or removal of burdens, it would seem reasonable on the face of it that the Committee should examine whether those inconsistencies and anomalies exist or have been satisfactorily removed and whether additional measures could have been introduced to achieve greater consistency and lack of anomaly.
The Committee faces an important task. The Parliamentary Secretary mentioned consensus. We should not be disparaged for seeking to proceed by consensus in relation to regulatory reform orders, as it does not necessarily mean compromise. Controversial measures should not be proceeded with without proper agreement, and the exceptional powers and procedure of the House for making legislation should be used only when there is agreement between parties that such measures are desirable. As we all know, it falls substantially to the Committee—as to all Committees of the House—to undertake detailed and effective scrutiny. We know from bitter experience that if we do not provide such scrutiny, too much legislation is introduced that we later regret. I therefore hope that the Standing Orders will be effective, that the Parliamentary Secretary can assure me that they will serve their purpose and that the Committee will be effective in discharging its functions.

Mr. Peter L. Pike: I should like to say a few words about the motion. In my last intervention on the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), in which I spoke about the name of the Committee, I may have inadvertently given the wrong impression about what could happen in future. It is right to say that the Committee recommended the name that is included in the proposed Standing Orders, but we did not say what it could or would be changed to. We said merely that it could be changed during the lifetime of the Parliament, so I want to correct any wrong impression that I may have given. We want deregulation to continue to be a main function of the Committee. The Government have said all along that they want to remove unnecessary bureaucracy and regulation that serves no useful purpose. I hope that hon. Members from all parties share that view.

Mr. Anthony Steen: As the hon. Gentleman is Chairman of the Deregulation Committee, of which I am a member, I think that it is right for me to refresh his memory. Only one order has been deregulated this year, and only one order last year. Are the Government genuinely committed to deregulation?

Mr. Pike: The hon. Gentleman has not been very noticeable by his attendance at our sittings, although I know that he has asked one or two questions in the House. Ministers have been most anxious for an increase. Indeed, the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 was introduced to increase the flow of activity and the pace with which matters are considered by the Committee.
The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire said that he could not recall whether the Committee had divided on any issues. The only matter on which there was a Division was the deduction of trade union subscriptions. It was debated and a vote was held on the Floor of the House, in accordance with Standing Orders. The Confederation of British Industry and all the employers who responded to the consultation strongly supported our recognition of the need to remove the bureaucracy that required everybody to sign the form every three years and to end the waste of time and money that was involved. If the Opposition had defeated the proposal, the main sources of concern would have included not only trade unions, but the employers throughout the country who wanted the change to be made.
The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire made a point about human rights.

Mr. Bercow: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Pike: I shall finish the human rights point, which I have started.
We accepted the Government's comments as debates progressed and the Regulatory Reform Bill was enacted, but I assure hon. Members that the Committee will consider the human rights point. I do not know the identity of the members or whether I shall be Chairman, but I shall ensure that the Clerks know about the debate and that the human rights point is considered soon after the general election.

Mr. Bercow: In the light of the point about proportionality and the reference in proposed new


paragraph (6)(A)(i) to European Union obligations, will the hon. Gentleman explain the connection between the principle of proportionality in the context of our debate and the principle of proportionality and its application under the protocol on subsidiarity and proportionality in the treaty of Amsterdam?

Mr. Pike: I did not mention proportionality and I do not understand why the hon. Gentleman referred to it. I have not reached that part of the proposed new Standing Order. I was responding to a few points that the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire made in his opening remarks. I have not started to develop the main points of my speech. The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) is obviously anxious to serve on the new Committee so that he can examine every issue in detail in the next Parliament. Every item that we have to consider is listed on our papers and hon. Members ask questions about them.

Mr. Bercow: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's keen and continuing interest in my welfare. I do not want to poison the well of political debate or personal relations, and I therefore stress that I have no objection in principle to serving on the Committee. However, I would be in a position to do that only after I had been sacked from the Opposition Front Bench—or the Government Front Bench, as it will be in the next Parliament. I am therefore in no hurry to serve on the Committee.

Mr. Pike: The hon. Gentleman will not be on the Government Front Bench, but he may be sacked from the Opposition Front Bench a little sooner than he expects. I do not know what crime he intends to commit.

Mr. Forth: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Will you confirm that membership of Select Committees is a matter for the House and that it should not be bandied about by hon. Members making countering offers?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Yes, that is true, but it would be a good idea to revert to the motion.

Mr. Pike: I was speaking about the motion; the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion that I was not doing so is a misinterpretation of my comments.
The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire referred to the independence of members of the Committee. Since the Deregulation Committee was established under the Deregulation and Contracting Act 1994, there has been no evidence of its members displaying a lack of independence. Few measures have been approved in the exact form that the Government proposed.
Today's Votes and Proceedings outlines yesterday's proceedings and reports three items from the Deregulation Committee. They show that Government proposals were agreed, but with amendment. They state that the proposals,
should be amended before a draft order is laid before this House.
Indeed, we recommended that the Government should not proceed with one of the proposals for the draft Deregulation (Bingo and Other Gaming) Order. We also recommended that the relevant Department should not implement the most important of the two proposals for the draft Deregulation (Restaurant and Licensing Hours) Order.
All along, therefore, the Committee has shown its independence and carried out its judgments according to the criteria laid down under the present Standing Order. I am sure that it will continue to do that under the new Standing Order, once we have agreed it. Indeed, the Committee agreed yesterday that as soon as the new Committee is established, in the new Parliament, the first sitting would need to consist of a briefing with the officials of the Committee to ensure that everyone understood its workings and the differences in procedures resulting from the new Act. There are bound to be some new members on the Committee. Indeed, everyone could be new, because I fully accept the point that the House appoints the Committee. The first thing that the new Committee will do will be to get to know how it will carry out its business under the new Standing Order and in accordance with the new Act.
We have also made it clear to the Government that there should be a sensible flow of business in the Committee. After the original Committee was established, we recognised why, but thought it wrong, in one instance three items of business were tabled in the same week. Normally, there should be a sensible flow of business if the Committee is to be able to do its work in a sensible way. It cannot have a large number of items thrown at it all at once. That will be clearly stated in the report that we intend to publish this week.
There was agreement under the previous Government that there should be a forward report,, but because there have not been many measures the forward report has tended to disappear. We are recommending that it should come back into being, to show what is on the agenda so that everybody knows what is in the pipeline.

Mr. Steen: I always enjoy listening to the hon. Gentleman, but I do not understand what he is talking about. Either these new arrangements are right or wrong. If they are right, we should let them go through; if they are wrong, will he tell us what he has against them? I do not understand what he is talking about. He must forgive me, but perhaps he could explain.

Mr. Pike: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman, who came in late to the debate, is just trying to waste time or is in one of those moods in which he fails to understand anyone speaking plain English—which is mentioned in the new Standing Order. I have spoken in simple terms. All that I am saying is that the new Committee wants to ensure that it has a sensible flow of proposals that ensures that it can deal with them; that there is adequate discussion so that all members of the Committee—including new ones—know exactly how it will work; and that a forward report will be published so that everyone knows what is on the horizon and what the Government have in the system.

Mr. Forth: The hon. Gentleman says, quite correctly—and very responsibly, given his current, highly elevated position as Chairman—that he hopes that there will be a regular flow of work for the Committee in the next Parliament. Will he tell us what control the Committee will have over the flow of work to achieve that aim?

Mr. Pike: That is an interesting point. We hope that the new Committee will have more power to be proactive, rather than just reactive, and that we shall be able to ask


what is happening and get Ministers to come before us and answer questions if we do not think that the system is working. That option is available to us.
My final point on yesterday's proceedings concerns one of the issues that my hon. Friend the Minister referred to as being part of the Home Office consultation process, and relates to gambling proposals. We want to take evidence from the Home Office on the way in which it intends to deal with legislation and deregulation measures on bingo, one-arm bandits, the lottery and other related issues. There needs to be a sensible approach, rather than a piecemeal one in which provisions overlap. For example, there are cases in which people do not know the age at which one can gamble in a pub as opposed to on a pier at the coast. All those measures differ, and we believe that it is time that the Home Office got those matters organised.

Mr. Steen: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his indulgence and for his giving way.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, I always try to be helpful to the House. The regulation or, rather, deregulation that the Committee has dealt with tends to involve gambling, dancing or bingo, as if the whole country were governed by people who gamble, love dancing or play bingo. Does he agree that the new Committee's prime objective should not be merely to take evidence as to whether we should gamble, play bingo or go dancing?

Mr. Pike: The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonably valid point. Indeed, when his party was in government, I asked whether ours was the Committee on gambling and throwing dice. Yes, that is the main issue that the Committee has considered, but he has seen the list that was relevant to the debate that we held a few weeks ago, which contained a lot of other measures.
We have considered important suggestions such as the truncation of cheques, which involved the banks. That major proposal for improvement has saved the banks a lot of money, although I think that two phases are involved and it is not obvious from what one sees at the front of a bank whether that second phase has been implemented. The hon. Gentleman should not deride what the Committee has done.

Mr. Bercow: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Pike: I am trying to speak to the proposed Standing Orders, but I give way for the last time.

Mr. Bercow: I am exceptionally grateful to the hon. Gentleman, whose generosity invariably gets the better of him in the House.
Further to the inquiry of my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), I put it to the hon. Gentleman, who is a very important, very distinguished, very senior, very respected, very influential and very eminent figure in the House, that it would be useful if the Committee, under not only his chairmanship, but his tutelage, sought to anticipate potentially unfavourable developments rather than merely react to

them. In that context, does he intend to use the full majesty of his office to take a view and to encourage his Committee to take a view on the proposed national works council directive?

Mr. Pike: I do not think that the Committee under my chairmanship will do more work, because a certain event may take place relatively soon. Although I am the only person who has been a member since its establishment, I do not know whether I will be a member in future. As the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) rightly said, that will be a matter for the House, which may not choose to put me back on the Committee. Let us leave the new Committee and the new Chairman to decide such matters. All we are trying to do is point a few issues in the right direction and approve the Standing Orders.
I intended to be brief, but, because of interventions, I have gone on much longer than I intended. The Standing Orders, which were included in the Committee's first special report, are based on the existing Standing Orders for the Committee, taking account of the 2001 Act. Only minor changes have been made, and the Committee and I welcome them.
In respect of proposed new paragraph (6)(B), burdens and benefit are covered by proposed new sub-paragraph (k). My hon. Friend the Minister referred in particular to the addition of sub-paragraph (1), which refers to
the test of desirability set out in section 3(2)(b) of the Act".
We welcome that, because it proves that the Government were taking note, even at a late stage, of what the House was saying in order to meet concerns that were expressed, in particular by the Liberal party, but also by others. Therefore, the Government have included that additional measure. Proposed new sub-paragraph (m) refers to other benefits. Vital matters have been dealt with and the Standing Orders will enable the Committee, when it is appointed, to do its job.
Finally, I want to emphasise a point that I made on Report and Third Reading. We all recognise the difficulties that will exist, but if there is an early election—everybody seems to think that there will be—the Committee must he set up as soon as possible so that it can get on with its work.
I accept some of the points made by Conservative Members: I hope that, at times, the Committee will be more proactive and I believe that the 2001 Act and the Standing Orders will provide it with the opportunity to be so, if its members so wish.

Mr. Brian Cotter: I thank the Minister for his full explanation of the proposed amendments, and the details of the various Standing Orders. The wording of the Standing Orders is perhaps as important as the wording of the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 itself, in that it establishes the parliamentary framework within which the Act will operate. I am sure all Members present want to ensure that the Act can be a truly effective vehicle for the cutting of excessive regulatory red tape which bears down on small firms in particular but also on many other businesses. It gives us parliamentarians a chance to prove to such businesses that we are serious about creating an environment that small firms can use to maximise their potential.
Owing to extensive pre-legislation scrutiny and the careful examination given to the Bill both here and in the other place, the Act that it has become represents a real opportunity for the achievement of that goal. Unless we get the scope of the Standing Orders just right, however—given that they constitute the nuts and bolts of our legislative framework—we shall find ourselves trying to cut the red tape with a pair of blunt scissors. That is why I was so pleased to hear some of the more sensible and constructive arguments that have been advanced today.
As a member of the current Committee, I have been involved with the Act from the outset. That includes the pre-legislation scrutiny. I am glad that we have reached this stage, and hope that the Act will begin to bear fruit in the near future. I welcome most of the changes to the Standing Orders. I especially welcome the name of the new Committee, and the work that it will do in examining the deregulation orders under the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994—alongside the new regulatory reform orders that will ensue.
Further amendments to Standing Order No. 141 should be gladly received. I welcome the inclusion in the Committee's remit of consideration of parliamentary procedure for subordinate provisions orders. An amendment tabled by Lord Borrie means that the Committee will be able to choose the procedure to which such orders should be subject, and will have power to report to the House accordingly. Owing to the wide scope of the Act, the powers vested in the Committee are vital to ensuring that it is not open to potential abuse, and will allow the Committee to exercise extra precautions when it deems that to be necessary.
Probably the most important change to Standing Order No. 141, in terms of the Committee's work, is an addition to the criteria on which proposals for orders must be considered: the necessity for them to be written in plain English. That was mentioned earlier, but I ask leave of the House to repeat it. We are, I hope, seeing the start of a move towards the use of more plain English in Parliament generally.
It is essential for us to make regulations that the business community can easily understand. One should not have to be a legal expert to interpret legislation. I trust that by giving the Committee power to consider regulations in this way, we shall ensure that the Government produce better regulation that is easily understood, and therefore easily adhered to with the minimum of fuss and difficulty. I am glad that the Government are allowing the Committee to judge their legislation on the basis of that objective. Originally, Ministers rejected the idea of including the proposal in the legislation, arguing that a requirement for clear and concise drafting would be automatic in view of its reforming nature. The inclusion of the criterion in the Committee's remit will hopefully mean that we can gradually make poorly drafted, complicated legislation a thing of the past.
I welcome the inclusion of additional criteria against which regulatory reform orders will be judged, which will go alongside those that are relevant to the deregulation orders. It is necessary that the criteria—reasonable expectations, proportionality, desirability and cost—that have been included in the Act are placed within the Committee's remit. That will help to ensure that the Minister making the original order will focus on those issues, being well aware that the Committee will test them

upon consideration of the order, which, again, should deter any rogue Minister who might seek to exploit the Act for questionable ends. Of course, I would not dream of suggesting that the existing Minister was a rogue Minister, but who knows who may come along in future—in the far distant future possibly.

Mr. Bercow: I am doing my best to preserve a certain sense of normality, but the atmosphere of consensus is becoming positively suffocating. It causes me to refer again to proposed paragraph (6)(A)(i) of the new Standing Order, which refers to obligations as a consequence of our membership of the European Union. If the Committee, which has such an august membership and such an outstanding Chairman, is to have a proper sense of its ambition, it should be prepared properly to scrutinise European Union directives and regulations that might adversely impact on this country. To fail to do so would be meek, mousy and myopic.

Mr. Cotter: It must be said that it was under the last Conservative Government that the original measure was put forward and a criticism of that measure is that it was rather meek, mousy and whatever else the hon. Gentleman said, because it did not allow the Committee to be proactive. It is incumbent on the new Committee and the new Chairman—we do not know who that will be—to ensure that it is far more proactive. I believe that it will be.
A couple of points with regard to the remit and composition of the Committee must be addressed. I note the amendments that the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) has tabled, which seek to increase the quorum of the new Committee from five to seven and the quorum of the sub-committee from two to four, with the stipulation that at least half that number should be from an Opposition party.
The amendments raise several important points with regard to the effective operation of the Committee. Whether one accepts that the quorum of the Committee should be increased or not, a valuable point is being made. The work of the Committee is likely to be plentiful and complex. In a written answer to the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas) on 27 November last year, the Minister provided a list of the proposals that the Government planned to bring forward under the new Act. We have talked about those before. The list is extensive and wide-ranging and shows that the Government are striving to make great use of the Act across a number of legislative areas.
That means that the Act is likely to be used to a greater extent than its predecessor, but we must recognise that the Committee will need to have the appropriate resources to deal with an extended work load. The lack of work with which the existing Committee has been provided has meant that the resources available to it have been reduced over time. However, it is likely that orders under the new legislation will come in thick and fast. The Committee needs to be prepared for that to ensure that orders are adequately scrutinised.
The Committee currently has 18 members, yet it is rare for all its members to attend sittings. On Second Reading of the Regulatory Reform Bill, the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) said that he had to write to the Conservative Chief Whip in his capacity as Chairman of the Select Committee on Deregulation stressing the need


for Conservative Members to attend. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) talked about the lack of an effective Committee, but it was noticeable that, during pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill, Conservative attendance was very low, too—and that at a time when one would have thought that they would be there to ensure that future legislation was effective.
The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst has tabled an amendment proposing that the sub-committee should include at least one Opposition Member. That highlights the importance of getting the balance on the Committee right and ensuring that Opposition Members make an effective contribution; although that does involve turning up, at least. Some of us hope that the Conservatives will be sufficiently enthused after the expected election to turn up. Of course there may not be many of them to turn up. We are looking for great participation by all parties, including my own.
The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst has rightly concentrated our minds on the issues, but I feel that, on balance, the existing quorum and membership are about right. We look forward to the points that the right hon. Gentleman will be making later in the debate.
We must consider the Committee's role in the scrutiny of regulatory reform orders. We must ensure that all elements of the Committee have a valid input into proceedings, especially as the Government will now have the power to introduce new burdens. We must ensure that the composition of the Committee reflects all political opinions and views. I welcome the fact that the stipulation remains that once a Member is selected for the Committee, he will continue to serve on it for the duration of the Parliament—

Mr. Forth: Whether he turns up or not.

Mr. Cotter: Indeed. It will probably be impossible to build up any real expertise in the Committee because so many subjects will be brought forward, but it is important that there is consistency of membership.

Mr. Forth: Does the hon. Gentleman think that a stipulation in Standing Orders that a Member, once elected to a Committee by the House, should remain on that Committee for the duration of the Parliament runs somewhat against his criticism—with which I totally agree—of Members who persistently fail to turn up to, show interest in or support the work of the Committee? Would it not be preferable if a mechanism were available that said that if Members did not attend a Committee over a certain period, they could be removed in favour of Members who were more committed to its work? Does he think that there is a danger in giving Members automatic and unchallenged membership of a Committee for the duration of a Parliament?

Mr. Cotter: I bow to the great experience of the right hon. Gentleman in this area. My point is a fair one. If people are not doing their job, they ought to be kicked out. Perhaps that applies generally, but it tends to take elections for that to happen. We shall see at the next election how many will be kicked out.

Mr. Bercow: I always enjoy listening to the hon. Gentleman, but I cannot allow him to get away with that

attempted response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth). He should not seek to obscure the debate by chuntering on about the possible result of the general election. Will he focus on the contradiction that was appositely highlighted by my right hon. Friend between his advocacy, on the one hand, of the argument that members should sit on the Committee to which they are appointed throughout the Parliament and then, when challenged—in characteristically Liberal Democrat fashion—his apparent acceptance of the alternative point of view, that poor attenders should be kicked off? Is he in favour of security of tenure or not?

Mr. Cotter: The hon. Gentleman always talks about people chuntering on, but he is also quite capable of that. I stick by my original proposal, but I am tempted by the suggestion of the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst because the attendance of Conservative members of the Committee has been deplorable. It would be very nice if one could say to them, "Get off the Committee if you don't turn up," but that is not the right way forward.

Mr. Pike: I actually wrote to the Conservative Chief Whip on two occasions, but I never received a reply. One of the Conservative members of the Committee later became a Whip, and I was told that the party could not find any replacement who could attend the Committee.

Mr. Cotter: That is a very interesting point.
I was also pleased to learn that the Committee will retain its ability to appoint specialist advisers, which is important because of the varied and complex nature of the business we are expected to consider. I know that the Chairman of the present Committee agrees that the new Committee should be appointed soon after the election, because business will be moving along. I would also like an assurance that the Committee will have adequate resources to fulfil its new functions, in terms of legal and administrative support from civil servants and clerks. It is vital that the members of the Committee have access to as much expertise and information as possible, and that is especially important when considering complex issues.
Resources become essential once again when we consider the Committee's intention to produce an annual report. At least, it was the recommendation of the previous Committee that it should produce an annual report and I hope that the new Committee will take that on board. The Government have indicated that they would find an annual report acceptable, although it has not been included in the motion.
Standing Order No. 141 remains the same in that the new Committee will have the power to invite Members of Parliament who are not part of the Committee to attend meetings. With the permission of the Chairman, the Committee will have the power to ask those Members questions. Ministers will be required to produce documents under section 6 of the Act, but as an additional safeguard it might be appropriate to give the Committee the power to summon Ministers and legally require them to answer its questions. That might prove a further deterrent to any supposed rogue Minister seeking to abuse power in the future.
I hope that the Minister will be able to provide me with some assurances on a few of the matters that I have raised regarding the Standing Order changes, which otherwise will—I hope—provide the basis for effective examination of regulation and deregulation in the future.

Mr. Eric Forth: I beg to move, as an amendment to the motion, amendment (a), in paragraph (10), leave out "five" and insert "seven".

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I remind the House that with this we are discussing amendment (b), in paragraph (12)(c), leave out "two" and insert "four".

Mr. Forth: If one tries to rise above the mind-numbing, mutually congratulatory, consensual nonsense that we have heard so far in the debate, the truth is that we are talking about the legislative process. What the Committee does, if its members bother to turn up and if it bothers to do more than one thing a year—which seems to have been the productivity rate hitherto—is legislate: it makes law and affects people's lives. We are therefore entitled to ask whether we are satisfied that the arrangements in place for the working of the Committee are appropriate to that end.
The Minister, who is conservative to his fingertips, said in a very conservative way, "Because it has always been done this way, it must be all right." The Government are happy to accept that what happened under the previous Government is equally all right, and the conservative Minister would not dream of challenging or changing any aspect of it. I welcome the Minister to the ranks of conservatism, but I am a radical and I see need for change if we can demonstrate that the existing arrangements are unsatisfactory.
I confess that I am not encouraged by what I have heard about the Committee's procedures. It seems to operate extraordinarily slowly, and to rely on the Government for its flow of work. That is hardly appropriate. Members of the Committee often do not bother to turn up, and the Chairman told us that he had to write to the Opposition Chief Whip to ask where members were. That gives me little confidence.
I am delighted and honoured that my amendments have been selected for debate. It is time for the House to consider how Select Committees work, and the attitude to their work of those Committees members. The revised Standing Order requires the Committee to examine provisions, to report to the House, to recommend whether draft orders should be laid before the House or amended, and so on. In effect, that is the legislative process. As such, it has a majesty that requires a guarantee that the people of this country be properly represented on those Committees.
The provisions outlining the structure and working of the Committee horrified me, and the debate so far has not lessened that horror. Nothing said by those eminent members of the Committee who are present or its august, senior and respected Chairman has given me confidence or optimism about how the revised Committee will discharge its duties. I am more than ever convinced that my modest amendments are appropriate.
We are told that the Deregulation and Regulatory Reform Committee will consist of 18 members. That is an encouraging start. Eighteen is a good number,

representative of the House and offering an appropriate spectrum of expertise and knowledge. It will allow the Committee to deal with the technical, specialist, difficult and complex matters with which it will be faced as it performs its scrutiny of one measure per year.
Will all 18 members always turn up, however? If not, how satisfactory are the quorum arrangements? This is where I get into difficulty. Amendment (a) deals with the provision in the Standing Order that states that the Committee's quorum shall be five.
In Committees such as this, we can guarantee that the Chairman will always be present, as—almost certainly—will dragooned members of the governing party. My worry, which the Committee's Chairman has more or less confirmed, is that the Committee could sit, deliberate and, in effect, legislate with as few as five Members present. Moreover, all five of those Members could belong to the party in government at the time.
I accept that the Opposition are under a responsibility to provide members of the Committee. I deprecate it when hon. Members serving on a Committee miss its meetings. I believe that my attendance record for the Committees on which I have the honour to serve bears considerable scrutiny. I have no hesitation in saying that all hon. Members serving on Committees should ideally be present at every meeting—but that is not the point. The point is that hon. Members should ask whether they are comfortable with a provision that allows as few as five hon. Members to make or change the law of the land.
I am not comfortable with that. I should have preferred the quorum to be set at an even higher level, but I accept that practicalities must be taken into account. My amendment proposing that the quorum be raised from five to seven is modest, but it would give at least a degree of assurance to hon. Members who are not on the Committee—and to voters and taxpayers—that at least seven people would be present when proposals to change the law of the land were being considered and enacted. That is not unreasonable. It would make it more likely—although it would not guarantee it—that those present embodied a spectrum of views and political representation.
Even more important are the proposals regarding the sub-Committee. Amendment (b) deals with paragraph 12(c) of the motion, which states that the sub-Committee
shall have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, and to adjourn from place to place within the United Kingdom.
This is where we get to the freebies and jollies part of the consideration. Hon. Members really like to decamp to different places to do their no doubt important work.

Mr. Pike: I assure the right hon. Gentleman that the Committee has never gone beyond the House of Commons on official business.

Mr. Forth: I am reassured to hear that, but I am looking to the future. The hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) may want to dwell on the past, but I am a visionary who looks forward to what may lie in the future. We have established that the Minister is a conservative at heart, and that the Chairman of the Committee looks to the past. By contrast, I am a radical who looks to the future.
My aim is to establish the fact that the Standing Order contains an explicit provision that almost invites the sub-Committee to travel. I have never known hon. Members to be reticent or hesitant about accepting an invitation to travel. It would be a revelation to come across one that was, but we can examine the matter of travel later. [Interruption.] One of the greatest experts in the universe on parliamentary travel has just arrived in the Chamber. I welcome the right hon. Member for Swansea, but confess that I cannot recall just now whether his constituency is Swansea, East or Swansea, West.

Mr. Donald Anderson: I represent Swansea, East.

Mr. Forth: I am sure that the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) would not thank me for confusing the Swansea constituencies.

Mr. Anderson: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Forth: Of course.

Mr. Anderson: My grandfather always said that the east is where the wise men came from.

Mr. Forth: I shall leave that for the right hon. Gentleman to sort out with the right hon. Member for Swansea, West. I do not want to intervene in the matter, although I know Swansea and like it enormously.
Paragraph 12(c) sets out the sub-Committee's extensive powers to send for "persons, papers and records", and to sit while the House is adjourned. The provision also allows it to travel, and hon. Members are clearly reluctant that reference should be made to that possibility. However, I suspect that those who have not examined the Standing Order will hardly be able to believe one of the other provisions.
The sub-Committee's work inevitably will be complex, technical and difficult, yet its quorum is to be set at two. It is therefore likely—or at least possible—that two Members of the House could bind this very important sub-Committee, which does such important work. Moreover, earlier provisions in the Standing Order mean that those two hon. Members could have a great deal of influence on what the House itself subsequently determines.
The House must decide whether it feels comfortable—in the context of Parliament and the legislative process—with the possibility that just two hon. Members might be able to discharge such important and onerous responsibilities. I do not feel comfortable with that possibility.
Amendment (b) is modest, as it would merely increase the sub-Committee's quorum from two to four. I could have tried to go further, but I want to try to persuade the House that that modest increase would at least provide the assurance that it would not be possible for two members of the sub-Committee to influence events in the way I have described.
The Chairman has said that he has no control over the flow of work; he seems is to rely on the Government to feed his Committee with material. If the record is to be believed, one measure a year seems about the average. In a funny way that reassures me, because if we end up, as I fear we may, with a sub-Committee operating on a quorum of two and the Committee on a quorum of only five, I sincerely hope that they will do only one thing a year. I would be nervous if I thought they would do any more work of any great importance at any great rate.

Mr. Pike: A few moments ago the right hon. Gentleman said that he was a visionary, looking forward, but now he is looking back to what happened under the Tory legislation. Should we not be looking at what will happen under Labour's Regulatory Reform Act 2001?

Mr. Forth: I have been looking back because I was told—I hope reliably—that the Committee had dealt with one measure over the past year. [Interruption.] The Chairman of the Committee says with some pride that the Committee did three things yesterday. I will grant the Chairman that—the Committee has done four things in the past year, if my arithmetic holds up under this scrutiny. Even so, that does not strike me as anything to write home about, as my dear mother used to say.

Mr. Pike: That was under the Tory Act.

Mr. Forth: I accept the Chairman's interventions because I know that he offers them in a helpful way. He seems to be saying that under legislation passed by the wicked Conservative Government, progress was very slow, but that under the exciting and dynamic version of the legislation passed by this Government, there will be rapid progress. We will judge that in the future. We will wait until the next Parliament elects the members of the Committee—and I stress that this House elects the members of the Committee—and the Committee elects its Chairman. The hon. Member for Burnley will no doubt be a contender for that position if he seeks it, but there is no guarantee that he will be elected by the Committee. After that, we can see the pace at which work will be done.

Mr. Bercow: My right hon. Friend has just held out the prospect, which will be enticing for some but not for others, of a Committee which will never knowingly be undertravelled. May I put it to my right hon. Friend, consistent with the point that he has just made, that to have a titchy—one might almost say piddling—sub-Committee quorum of two trotting about, conducting their very important, distinguished and complex business, is not entirely consistent with the ambition for the Committee that the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) has described?
Because the declaration of a personal interest is always of the essence in our proceedings, and my right hon. Friend has several times dwelt, with a certain contagious enthusiasm, on the need for election of the Chairman and members of the Committee in the future, may I put it to him that he may wish to be considered for the chairmanship of the Committee under the revised Standing Order, and that if he were successful, he would thereby attain a peak of eminence to which he has never previously so much as aspired?

Mr. Forth: My hon. Friend is characteristically generous. I doubt whether my modest experience and


humble aspirations would raise me to anything like the level that my hon. Friend suggests. However, that is something on which I should like to ponder if I am re-elected to this House—an assumption that none of us must make.
I hope that the House will give serious consideration to my amendments. I am honoured that my amendments have been selected, but I think that the argument goes wider. I am unhappy and uneasy about the low quorum numbers that apply to Committees of this House. I am also uneasy, not least because of the comments of the hon. Member for Burnley during this debate, that we are in danger of asking Committees and colleagues to do very important work in very small numbers. I wonder whether the extent to which very small and possibly unrepresentative numbers of Members can have a disproportionate influence on events is widely appreciated. I am assiduous in my attendance in the House on Fridays, and I am happy to say that, because so few other Members turn up, those who are here have a disproportionate influence on events which not all colleagues appreciate. That illustrates the importance of a realistic quorum figure. That this House, in its majesty, cannot even muster a quorum of 40 Members on a Friday indicates that the attitude of many Members to our work does not bear close scrutiny.
I hope that the House will consider my amendments carefully. I would like this to be the first exciting breakaway from the past—so beloved of the Minister—into a future in which we take our work more seriously and are prepared to commit ourselves to larger quorums. I hope that those fortunate enough to be elected in the forthcoming election will come here with an enthusiasm, vigour and commitment; and that they will not be afraid of a quorum of seven, as I suggest for a Committee of 18, or four, as I suggest for the sub-Committee "with passports".
I believe that my request is modest and that agreeing to it would be a step in the right direction. Accepting the amendments would be a strong signal for other Committees to follow the same course.

Mr. Richard Page: I appreciate the way in which the Minister presented the case. However, I thought that he started on a rather unfortunate note when he referred, as I recall, to "mainly thoughtful" amendments. I thought that a gratuitous swipe at Liberal Democrat Members and their amendments—an unwise move, given that the whole House knows that the Labour party has entered into a tactical alliance with the Liberal Democrat party for the next election. To criticise one's partners in such a way is not a career-enhancing move. I therefore advise the hon. Gentleman to be careful about this in the future.
We are in favour of any measures that can reduce burdens, particularly on small businesses. We have seen such burdens increase over the past few years at an extraordinary rate.

Mr. Bercow: Exponential.

Mr. Page: It is not quite exponential, but we will not debate the correct arithmetical term. Nevertheless, the growth of such burdens has been exceptional, into record

figures. Anything that can make life simpler and easier is to be welcome, provided, of course, that the process is democratically accountable.
I regard this as the latest step in a process originally started by my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) when he considered regulation and deregulation. I hope that nobody will ask me why we put into the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 a limit so that only legislation before 1994 could be considered, because I do not know.
The measure before us is a departure from the traditional process. It is exceptionally important to ensure that it is not and cannot be abused; otherwise we could create many difficulties for ourselves in the future.
I thank the Minister for his explanation—particularly for expounding how the process will operate, the importance and fullness of the consultation document and the way in which it will be adequately filled in by all the interested parties. That is most important. However, I am slightly worried about one or two aspects. The Standing Orders will provide estimates of the costs and savings attached to the new regulations. There must be independence when those costs and savings are calculated. There has been a strong feeling in the past in my party, if not throughout the House, that civil service officials may not have calculated the cost of implementing regulations fully and accurately enough. We want accurate figures that are accepted by the industries involved. Some organisations representing smaller businesses are talking about an extra £10 billion in the cost of implementing regulations.
I welcome the Minister's repetition of the Government's commitment that, if the Committee decides to reject a particular order, the measure will not proceed to the House for a vote. That is an important democratic commitment, which should be welcomed.
The Committee will have much greater responsibility than it had in the past. I heard the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) defend what has happened and defend the criticisms of my right hon. and hon. Friends. I understand why Conservative Members are not that keen to turn up at a Committee that is dealing with, for example, dancing on Sundays. I do not think that such an issue catches the popular mood or the interest of every Member of the House.
The issues that will come before the Committee are vital to the reduction of regulatory burdens, and I would like to think that a high quality of Member will serve on it. Their input will be important, and my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) alluded to that point.
Resources are another aspect of the issue. When, subject to the leave of the House, the Minister winds up, I hope that he will touch on the issue of the provision of resources. I am glad that the Committee will retain the ability to have independent advisers, because it will deal with a variety of subjects. It is not like the Select Committees on Home Affairs, Health or Trade and Industry; it will deal with regulations that cover the whole gamut of government. It will therefore need to be able to draw on the help of independent advisers.
Although I would like to express unadulterated praise for the proposal, one or two issues give rise to criticism. The aficionados who have followed this issue are well aware of the substance and shape of the changes that are being made to the Standing Orders. However, the fact that


such long and complex proposals appeared on the Order Paper only on Monday is unsatisfactory. I am sure that some Members would have contributed to this debate if they had had longer to consider the proposals. As soon as I knew that the matter was coming up, I went to the Vote Office; but I obtained a copy of the proposals only on Monday morning. The time scale for consideration has been inadequate.
The provision relating to plain English is to be welcomed. I noticed how the Minister tried to weasel himself out of his previous comments by referring to his distaste for superficial simplicity. We are looking not for superficial simplicity, but for plain English that can be understood. That was why we tabled amendments to the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 and are glad that such suggestions are now being adopted in the Standing Orders. Legislation does not have to be in archaic legal language to have the clarity that he mentioned. We can achieve that aim without using the legalese that no one except lawyers understands. Provisions often appear in seven or eight paragraphs when one or two would be sufficient.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire made several comments on the issue of proportionality, and I hope that the Minister will respond to them. When the Regulatory Reform Act was being considered by both Houses and in Committee, we drew attention to the unsatisfactory nature of the test of proportionality, as set out in sections 1 and 3. The Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 allowed burdens to be imposed only when they were less onerous, but that is not the case now. More onerous burdens can be imposed, which shows the importance of the Committee's members not being lobby fodder for any particular party. They must be independent and consider the issues so that regulations are not approved if they would, on balance, disadvantage the whole cause of deregulation.
I shall finish as I started. Conservative Members want the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 to work and we want the burdens on our people to be reduced. We will do everything that we can to make sure that it works in the most effective and beneficial fashion.

Mr. Stringer: With the leave of the House, I wish to reply to some of the points that have been made.
The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) asked several direct questions. Some of them were hypothetical, but others were not. His first question was whether the Government would give a commitment to accept any amendment that the Committee agreed should be incorporated in the new regulatory reform order. I clearly cannot give such a commitment; it was a hypothetical question. The answer depends on the nature of the amendment proposed. However, the Government have given a commitment that when the majority of the Committee disagrees with the Government's regulatory reform order, it can, in effect, kill the order. Given the consensual way in which the Government and the Committee have operated, it is much more likely that they would discuss any disagreement with a view to resolving the issues that divide them.
The hon. Gentleman's second question was about what would happen if the Committee recommended the affirmative procedure for subordinate provisions. Again,

I cannot give an absolute guarantee that the Government would accept such a suggestion. Although I cannot think of them at present, detailed issues might arise that would not allow us to do that. However, if the Committee said that it preferred the affirmative procedure rather than the negative procedure, there would have to be extraordinarily good reasons for the Government to reject its suggestion. I expect that, in most circumstances, the Minister would accept its recommendations.
Thirdly, the hon. Gentleman asked whether the Government would agree not to proceed with an order if there had been a Division in Committee. The Government would not agree not to proceed on that basis because it does not necessarily relate to the definition of controversy that we used when we said that we would not take large and controversial matters through this process. A Division would show that a majority in the Committee were in favour of the order, and the procedures allow for a debate of an hour and a half on the Floor of the House in such circumstances. As my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) explained, that procedure has been used on one occasion in the past.

Mr. Page: The Minister must realise that such a procedure could be used on a party political basis to drive forward changes to legislation that may not be in the general interest or to which a certain section may not agree. To my knowledge, the Public Accounts Committee has operated for the past 10 or 15 years without ever holding a Division. It proceeds with a recommendation only when there is consensus. That is the approach and thinking that we want in this Committee. Everything that it sends to the House should have a consensus. Once it is subject to a Division, the purpose and reasoning behind the Deregulation Committee will be finished.

Mr. Stringer: I accept the spirit of the hon. Gentleman's comments, but if one Member divides the Committee, it will not be sensible for the Government to decide not to test its decision for an hour and a half on the Floor of the House. I am happy to repeat that the Committee and the Government have used deregulation orders on a consensual basis, and that we intend to use regulatory reform orders in the same way. We will not introduce large and politically controversial measures as part of the regulatory reform order process.

Mr. Pike: I can assure my hon. Friend that the absence of Conservative Members from Committee proceedings concerns me for exactly that reason: I never wanted it to take a decision with only Labour and Liberal Members present.

Mr. Stringer: I thank my hon. Friend for that useful contribution.
While accepting that it is the Committee's role to consider the simple and plain use of English without detracting from the accuracy of legislation, the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire asked whether it would be part of its remit to consider the simplification of regulation. In one sense, that does not need to be in its terms of reference. The core reason for the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 was to enable the Government to introduce regulatory reform orders to consolidate many aspects of legislation, such as fire regulations, which were discussed at length in Standing Committee. In that way, all


regulations that apply to fire could exist in one regulatory reform order, which is bound to be a simplification when one considers the number of regulations and the amount of legislation that apply to fire.

Mr. Bercow: I cannot help but think that the choice of example is not well advised. In apparently celebrating the fire regulations, is the hon. Gentleman aware that they are the subject of growing controversy? I received only a few days ago a detailed and persuasive complaint about them. I suggest that he is a little more cautious in his praise.

Mr. Stringer: In publishing the list of possible regulatory reform orders, which we did when the Bill was introduced, we quoted fire regulations as an example of what an order could simplify. Many people involved in commerce and business are not satisfied that fire regulations are clear. In many cases, that is also true of the fire service. They exist in more than 120 pieces of primary legislation and 120 pieces of secondary legislation. What makes them ideally suitable for a regulatory reform order is the fact that people are dissatisfied with them, not that they are very politically controversial.
The hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page) outlined the details of the Committee's procedures and explained some of the difficulties that might be encountered. He asked two direct questions: first, whether the Committee would have the resources to enable it to carry out its business, and the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire made a similar point; and secondly, whether the Committee would have the right and power to force Ministers to attend. Both issues are a matter for the House. I understand that extra legal resources have been made available to the Committee. I also understand that, in the past, the House has exempted hon. Members from an obligation to attend when they are asked to do so. However, it would be an unwise Minister with responsibility for a regulatory reform order who refused to attend to say why he or she wanted it.

Mr. Bercow: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; he has been most generous.
I am well aware that it is part of the Minister's style—not dissimilar to that of his celebrated colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office—to act as an impartial umpire, if such a person exists. I wonder whether I can tempt him to express an opinion on the vexed question that was highlighted by speech of the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Cotter) and in the interventions of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) Should members of the newly formed Committee enjoy security of tenure from the start of a Parliament to its end, or should that be attendance dependent?

Mr. Stringer: That is a matter of resource and, like the ability and right of the Committee to force hon. Members to attend, is a matter for the House. When the House has appointed Members to this and other Select Committees, it has done so for a full parliamentary Session. I cannot remember the exact words used, but they are to the effect of "until the House otherwise decides". So the House

reserves the right to remove Committee members—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman repeats from a sedentary position that he asked for my opinion. I believe that it is for the House to determine such issues. I am sure that it would be annoyed if I told it what to do. I see the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) nodding.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley for his work on the Committee. I also thank the Committee for its work on the Standing Orders. I am not at all embarrassed to agree with it on most things and to take its opinion into account when the Government reach their conclusions.
In proposing the amendments, the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst demonstrated an almost perverse and paranoid attitude towards the consensus building that the Committee uses when it accepts deregulation orders. Members from all parties have worked on a consensual basis, which has made for some good deregulation orders. He criticised my comments by saying that it is conservative to rely on what has happened in the past. If that was all we were doing, I would agree with him, but it is not.
We have considered whether the superaffirmative process that creates deregulation orders, which was established by the previous Conservative Government, has produced good law. The evidence overwhelmingly shows that that is the case. If he really wants to make an argument based on the evidence, he has to show that the procedures on which we are building have failed because of the quorum of five that has been applied to the Committee since its inception. Clever though the right hon. Gentleman's speeches are, he failed to show that the previous process had failed. The fact that we are building on that process bodes well for the future of the Committee under the 2001 Act.
The right hon. Gentleman gave away what he really wants. He is paranoid not only about consensus but about legislation—

Mr. Forth: indicated assent.

Mr. Stringer: The right hon. Gentleman agrees. The third amendment in his name, which the Speaker did not select for discussion by the House, would have given a minority of members of the Committee, from the Conservative party or any Opposition party, a right of veto. He proposed that if Opposition Members did not turn up, the Committee could not work. That would not be a sensible or democratic way to proceed.
The right hon. Gentleman said that there was a problem with the sub-Committee having a quorum of only two because that is not a satisfactory number of people to make law. However, the sub-Committee has to report to the Committee, which has to lay the orders before the House.
I ask the House to support the proposals before it.
Amendment negatived.
Main Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the following changes be made to the Standing Orders of the House—
A. That Standing Order No. 141 (Deregulation Committee) be repealed and the following new Standing Order be made—


Deregulation and Regulatory Reform Committee

(1) There shall be a select committee, called the Deregulation and Regulatory Reform Committee, to examine—

(i) every document containing proposals laid before the House under section 3 of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 (the 1994 Act) or under section 6 of the Regulatory Reform Act 2001 (the 2001 Act);

(ii) every draft order proposed to be made under section 1 of the 1994 Act or section 1 of the 2001 Act; and

(iii) every subordinate provisions order or draft of such an order made or proposed to be made under sections 1 and 4 of the 2001 Act.

(2) The committee shall report to the House, in relation to every proposals document referred to in paragraph 1(i) of this order, either

(a) that a draft order in the same terms as the proposals should be laid before the House; or

(b) that the proposals should be amended before a draft order is laid before the House; or

(c) that the order-making power should not be used in respect of the proposals.

(3) The committee shall report to the House, in relation to every draft order referred to in paragraph 1(ii) of this order, its recommendation whether the draft order should be approved.

(4) The committee may draw the special attention of the House to any subordinate provisions order or draft order referred to in paragraph 1(iii) of this order, and may report its opinion whether or not the order or draft order should be approved or, as the case may be, annulled.

(5) The committee may report to the House on any matter arising from its consideration of the said proposals, draft orders or subordinate provisions orders.

(6)(A) In its consideration of proposals the committee shall consider in each case whether the proposals

(a) appear to make an inappropriate use of delegated legislation;

(b) remove or reduce a burden or the authorisation or requirement of a burden;

(c) continue any necessary protection;

(d) have been the subject of, and take appropriate account of, adequate consultation;

(e) impose a charge on the public revenues or contain provisions requiring payments to be made to the Exchequer or any government department or to any local or public authority in consideration of any licence or consent or of any services to be rendered, or prescribe the amount of any such charge or payment;

(f) purport to have retrospective effect;

(g) give rise to doubts whether they are intra vires;

(h) require elucidation, are not written in plain English or appear to be defectively drafted;

(i) appear to be incompatible with any obligation resulting from membership of the European Union.

(B) In the case of proposals presented under the 2001 Act, the committee shall also consider whether the proposals:

(j) prevent any person from continuing to exercise any right or freedom which he might reasonably expect to continue to exercise;

(k) satisfy the conditions of proportionality between burdens and benefits set out in sections 1 and 3 of the Act;

(l) satisfy the test of desirability set out in section 3(2)(b) of the Act;

(m) have been the subject of, and take appropriate account of, estimates of increases or reductions in costs or other benefits which may result from their implementation; or

(n) include provisions to be designated in the draft order as subordinate provisions;

and in the case of the latter consideration the committee shall report its opinion whether such a designation should be made, and to what parliamentary proceedings any subordinate provisions orders should be subject.

(7) In its consideration of draft orders, the committee shall consider in each case all such matters set out in paragraph (6) of this order as are relevant and the extent to which the Minister concerned has had regard and to any resolution or report of the Committee or to any other representations made during the period for parliamentary consideration.

(8) In its consideration of any subordinate provisions order the committee shall in each case consider whether the special attention of the House should be drawn to it on any of the grounds on which (in accordance with paragraph 1(B) of Standing Order No. 151 (Statutory Instruments (Joint Committee)) the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments may draw the attention of the House to a statutory instrument; and if the committee is of the opinion that any such order or draft order should be annulled, or, as the case may be, should not be approved, they shall report that opinion to the House.

(9) The committee shall consist of eighteen members.

(10) The quorum of the committee shall be five.

(11) Unless the House otherwise orders, each Member nominated to the committee shall continue to be a member of it for the remainder of the Parliament.

(12) The committee shall have power—

(a) to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place within the United Kingdom, and to report from time to time;
(b) to appoint specialist advisers either to supply information which is not readily available or to elucidate matters of complexity within the committee's order of reference;
(c) to appoint a sub-committee, of which the quorum shall be two, which shall have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, and to adjourn from place to place within the United Kingdom;
(d) to communicate its evidence and any other documents relating to matters of common interest to any committee appointed by this House and to any committee appointed by the Lords to examine deregulation and regulatory reform proposals and draft orders.

(13) The committee and the sub-committee shall have leave to meet concurrently with any select committee appointed by the Lords to examine deregulation and regulatory reform proposals and draft orders and any sub-committee thereof.

(14) The committee and the sub-committee shall have the assistance of the Counsel to the Speaker and, if their Lordships think fit, the Counsel to the Lord Chairman of Committees.

(15) The committee and the sub-committee shall have power to invite Members of the House who are not members of the committee to attend meetings at which witnesses are being examined and such Members may, at the discretion of the chairman, ask questions of those witnesses; but no Member not being of the committee shall otherwise take part in the proceedings of the committee or sub-committee, or be counted in the quorum.

(16) It shall be an instruction to the committee that before reporting either

(a) that any proposal should be amended before the draft order is laid before the House, or
(b) that the order-making power should not be used in respect of any proposal, or
(c) that any draft order should not be approved,

it shall afford to any government department concerned an opportunity of furnishing orally or in writing to it or to the sub-committee appointed by it such explanations as the department think fit.

(17) It shall be an instruction to the committee that it report on every draft order (not being a subordinate provisions order) not more than fifteen sitting days after the draft order was laid before the House, indicating in the case of draft orders which it recommends should be approved whether its recommendation was agreed without a division.

B. That the following amendments be made to Standing Order No. 18 (Consideration of draft deregulation orders)—

(1) Title, after 'deregulation', insert 'etc.'.


(2) Line 1, after 'Deregulation', insert 'and Regulatory Reform'.
(3) Line 3, after 'Deregulation', insert 'and Regulatory Reform'.
(4) Line 5, after '1994', insert 'or under section 1 of the Regulatory Reform Act 2001'.

C. That the following amendment be made to Standing Order No. 98 (Scottish Grand Committee (delegated legislation)

Line 15, after 'order', insert 'or regulatory reform order'.

D. That the following amendment be made to Standing Order No. 115 (Northern Ireland Grand Committee (delegated legislation))—

Line 15, after 'order', insert 'or regulatory reform order'.

E. That the following amendment be made to Standing Order No. 118 (Standing committees on delegated legislation))—

Line 14, after 'order', insert 'or regulatory reform order'.

F. That the following amendment be made to Standing Order No. 151 (Statutory Instruments (Joint Committee))—

Line 25, after '1994', insert 'or under section 1 of the Regulatory. Reform Act 2001, or any subordinate provisions order made or draft proposed to be made under that Act'.

G. That the following amendment be made to Standing Order No. 152 (Select committees related to government departments)

Line 33, after 'Deregulation', insert 'and Regulatory Reform'.

Working Group on Provision for Former Members

The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Margaret Beckett): I beg to move,
That this House is aware that many Members who leave the House, whether by retirement or otherwise, would welcome the opportunity to remain in contact with each other; believes also that former Members might benefit from being in touch with sources of personal advice and assistance with difficulties arising once they have left the House; and suggests that a small informal group be set up to consider how these issues might be addressed, to report to the Speaker and the Leader of the House.
I shall be extremely brief because the motion is an initiative of my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) and others, and testament to their dogged determination. My hon. Friend wants to provide means by which retired Members could, if they wished, remain in contact with one another. He is also conscious that there might be a case for modest advice or support for those who were Members and who have found difficulties, for example, in obtaining employment. The motion does not commit the House to take such steps; it merely allows us to establish a working group to consider what provision, if any, should be made and to report to the Speaker and the Leader of the House.
At present, there is no way in which ex-MPs can keep in touch with the House, and no provision for the small amount of funding that might be required. There are many routes by which that might be made possible—for example, I believe that there has been a suggestion that the scope of the Members' fund could be changed and that Members could each pay a small additional contribution to the fund. The current contribution is £24 a year. That, of course, would require legislation, which itself has some attendant disadvantages. Those complications make it clear that we need to think about these matters properly, and the motion invites us to set up a group to do so.

Mr. Joe Ashton: This is a rather unusual motion, and I am deeply grateful, as are the colleagues who have worked with me on this, to the Speaker, who provided guidance on how to set about tabling it, and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who has been admirably supportive. The Labour Chief Whip has supported us, as have the Chief Whips of the other two main parties. Everybody has been very willing to try to do something about this serious problem.
Every MP has to face the fact that sooner or later they will no longer be a Member of this House. If the voters do not see us off, old age or the boundary changes will. That applies to me, because I am leaving after 32 years. Since 1986, approximately 660 MPs have left. Half of them retired and the others were rejected by the electorate. In the last election alone, 178 Conservative MPs lost their seats. The average stay of an MP today is eight years.
What happened to the MPs who left? Few people know. We know that democracy demands many victims. In the nine Parliaments that I have served in, there have been many anecdotes of ex-Members who have suffered nervous breakdown, divorce, heart disease, alcoholism,


depression, serious debt and even, in two cases, suicide. Where is the evidence? It exists, but it is mainly hearsay because few, if any, losers want to parade their unemployed grief or poverty in public, especially if local newspapers have featured pictures and headlines about them, perhaps exulting in their defeat. Their children may be verbally abused in the playground and end up in tears. There are some sad, sorry stories.
The proposals came about because a couple of years ago, in response to a request from a publisher, I started to write a book of memoirs. I tried to trace old comrades and opponents to check on facts such as times and places, and I found it impossible to do so. I could not get their address and telephone number or any other information. The Fees Office and the pensions unit were helpful and sympathetic, but unfortunately the Data Protection Acts prevented them from giving out addresses or telephone numbers and even from confirming that an ex-Member was still alive. They said that they were sorry about that, but occasionally, such as in June 1999, told me that if I were to check The Times obituary column I might find the information that I sought.
I then began to try to form an all-party lobby to compile that information on a voluntary basis, but we could not get the names and addresses—the database was not available. People outside the House, such as Norman Atkinson and Frank Allaun, came to me and said that they badly needed an organisation to speak up on their behalf but that they could not get the names and addresses of ex-MPs. I contacted old friends in the House, including my hon. Friends the Members for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding) and for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours), the right hon. Member for East Devon (Sir P. Emery), and the hon. Members for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells), for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman), for Southport (Mr. Fearn) and for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie). I am sure that they would all be in the Chamber, had we started at 10 o'clock as we intended. Some of them had rallied round, but the earlier start has put us in a rather difficult position. However, a few have managed to make it.

Mr. Peter Snape: Even though I am not one of the distinguished Members on my hon. Friend's list—but I think that I should have been—I am here.

Mr. Ashton: Many people have said that; it just so happened that three Members were sitting in a tearoom when I made the suggestion, and that is how the group was formed.
To give a couple of examples, Ossie O'Brien, the head of a further education college, came to the House after winning a by-election in Darlington. He was in for only three months because a general election was held after that period and he lost his seat. He gave up a good job. The local newspaper said that it was a cheat that he should get six months' money for only three months' work; he had to face that sort of abuse. I was talking to my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, South and Cleveland, East (Dr. Kumar) today about trying to get in to the House. He had had five months in the House before losing his seat in a by-election. If, in a democracy, we want able and talented people to stand for Parliament, who

will take that risk, especially if they are 35 or 40 and have two or three children? We should ask questions like that. Because of the turnover of Members, we do not know the traumas that they may have experienced.
The Speaker pulled everything together. Our group went to him for advice and he said that unless we put a motion on the Order Paper, we had no chance of achieving our aims on a voluntary or party basis. He said that we could not expect any accommodation, help and so on. He had had a lot of experience of dealing with his redundancy in his previous job. As a young woman, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House lost her seat in Lincoln, so she understands what that feels like. As a young woman, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, my right hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor), lost her seat in Bolton because of boundary changes. The Speaker and my right hon. Friends therefore had experience of what can happen to MPs and understand that it is time to set up a group.
Obviously, the group needs accommodation, clerical staff and a database, so that people can ring in and get information. It was plain that the Speaker was right; we could not expect money from the taxpayer. My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said that as well. However, we are not asking for taxpayers' money, even though it would take only a small sum to pay for a part-time secretary to organise the database and make arrangements. We talked to the chairman of the pension fund and other experts to discuss funding the small number of staff who are needed.
There is a Members' fund in the House, and we all pay £2 a month into it. I have been paying into the fund for 30 years and I was astonished to find out how much money was in it. However, we could not use that for our purposes; legislation is needed to make that change. We therefore got to the stage where we had to set up a working group to analyse those problems and talk to people. Members need to remember that those who are pushing the proposal will not be here after the election, as they will have retired and will have no clout or status.
Thanks to the Speaker and my right hon. Friends the Leader of the House and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, a motion was tabled. I am sorry about the difficulty with timing, but it may be better to run the debate past 7 o'clock; I am sure that many people want to do that. I am willing to take the mood of the House on whether it wants to have a vote at 7 o'clock. However, now that a few people are in, it is as well to let everybody have their say. The matter should be discussed, as it has never been before.
We ran into the problem of a May election. It took time over Easter to organise things; we had a week off, so getting people together was difficult. A May election looked as if it would knock the proposal sideways, but we have had a stay of execution, so to speak, which has enabled us to have a motion put on the Order Paper.
In the past, the Whips' offices have undertaken certain duties. I was a Whip when a Labour Government was 17 Members short of a majority in the mid-1970s. People die; there have been cases of people committing suicide, even in the House and even during this Parliament. What a job it is to deal with those deaths. Very often there is a delicate situation in which the party wants to have a by-election as quickly as possible and choose a candidate within, perhaps, a few days of the man or woman dying.


The family is aggrieved, and says that things are being rushed and there is no dignity or respect for the dead. It is a difficult job for any Whip to organise such things.
Even with the funerals of people who have left the House, including some very good friends of mine, there are problems. Having read their obituary or got news that they have died, I have tried to find their addresses. They may have moved house after leaving Parliament, and sometimes I have found their addresses after the funeral. However, I had sent a letter to their previous addresses or addressed it care of the House, so it never reached their families. There have been embarrassing situations at the funerals of former MPs who had not been long retired, when not one single Member has turned up. The funeral was held only five, six, or seven days after the person's death, so there was not time to get information across and spread the news.
There have therefore been embarrassing scenarios. I do not want to identify people because no doubt the media, who have already been on to me, would want to know who had committed suicide and who had had to sell their house. People want to keep their privacy; they are no longer MPs and do not want their circumstances reported. However, 1992 was a bad year for people who lost their seat because it was the year of negative equity. A lot of people who had been in the House had bought a flat or other accommodation in London; or perhaps they had taken on a long lease. They then found themselves without a job, and could not sell or rent their property. When the Labour party lost in 1979, we did a check a year later and found that 38 MPs still had not got a job.
It is not easy. If someone has been the MP for a small town and has been a well-known bigwig, to go for a job on offer at the Benefits Agency is tremendously—and understandably—embarrassing and demeaning. Such people will say that they are going to move to another town. At the last election, for the first time, a large number of women stood as candidates. Some of them won their seats, although they may not have expected to do so in 1997. They were simply going along for the experience but, lo and behold, they won a seat with a majority of a few 100 or a couple of thousand votes. A woman in that position would have had to tell her husband that they would have to move to midtownshire, for which she was the MP. They would have to move 100 miles and buy a house; the kids would have to move, the husband would have to give up his job and get a new job in midtownshire. I understand that one or two husbands have even become researchers, which may have been the only job that they could get. Four years later, however, such MPs may be out. Everybody knows that there is a winding-up allowance, but it is not much, especially for people under 50. All that they will get is six months' severance pay. It is not a happy situation.
When I have talked about that, people, especially the media, say that candidates know what they are doing when they stand for Parliament. Of course we do; we all know the old adage, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." However, in any battle, there will be casualties. Boundary changes can result in even worse problems. There may be a long, drawn-out, horrendous process of three local MPs chasing two seats; that can be worse and more stressful than an election.
I am sorry to go on, but I have a lot to say. If the House does not mind, I shall keep going until 10 o'clock—[Interruption.] Okay, I shall take notice of the House by speaking for another few minutes and then conclude my remarks.
I have described some of the problems that we have had.

Mr. Edward Leigh: I very much support the hon. Gentleman who has talked about serious matters. However, I have often thought about one small matter. United States Congressmen who are defeated or have retired can go to any part of the building, apart from the floor of the debating chamber. Here, we are very restricted; former Members can go to the canteen, but not other parts of the building. I do not know why retired Members, especially those of pensionable age, are not allowed to go wherever they want in the building. It is cruel for somebody who has been sitting around all those rooms for 20 or 25 years to be told that they have to carry a pass, and can go here, but not there. Can we not be more open-minded?

Mr. Ashton: That is exactly one of the problems that the working party should consider. Everybody could ask, "What about this or that? How will it work? What are the questions? What are the answers?" We do not know. We must meet and probe. The media say that Vauxhall make mass redundancies, as do the pit villages, and the workers who lose their jobs must put up with it. However, those people can go down the road and meet in the pub, but defeated Members of Parliament cannot. They are scattered all over the country. They do not have the telephone numbers of other former Members, and may not want to spend the money coming down to London. They may meet up at the party conference. People in other trades and jobs—for example, a skilled fitter made redundant by Vauxhall—can go down the road and get a job somewhere else. A Member of Parliament cannot do that. It is four years before he gets another chance, and then he may have to move house again.
None of us are whingeing about our circumstances. We know how they come about, but a serious analysis of what happens and why has never been undertaken by a Committee of authority. After the election, everybody forgets about the matter until the next election, when a motion such as this is proposed. The single factor that has brought it about is the data protection legislation, which prevents us achieving our aims on a voluntary basis.
I shall make one last point. The same problems are faced by staff. What a horrendous situation when staff must sit watching the count at 1 am, not knowing whether they have a job to go to the following day. When The Sunday Times and the unions arranged a meeting in the House for secretaries not long ago, 350 of them packed Room 14. I know, and people find out only when they leave, that it is impossible to get any information from the Fees Office. It cannot give such information until a decision is announced that Parliament is to be prorogued. Once that decision is made, the Fees Office can provide information about pensions, possible redundancy pay for staff and so on. The matter needs looking into, and the Committee could undertake that.
With the backing of the Speaker, the Leader of the House and many others, the Committee will not just be the equivalent of an old British Legion meeting for a drink


twice a year, to spin old yarns. It needs to be a bit more than a social get-together. It must undertake a serious analysis of what the House should be doing, like every other big company in the country—running a personnel department to help people who have worked here for a large part of their life.

Mr. Dominic Grieve: The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) has done the House a good turn by raising the matter. I warmly welcome his remarks, which make eminent good sense. I know that my late father greatly enjoyed the informal contact that he had with his colleagues after leaving the House. He had the advantage of being able to come back to a number of dining clubs.
On the hon. Gentleman's last point, I was horrified by the number of requests that I received after the last election from former members of staff to come and work for me, in secretarial capacity or otherwise. They clearly had serious difficulties, and the situation must have been traumatic for them.
The hon. Gentleman has raised a number of important issues, and the sensible way of taking them forward is as he suggests. I appreciate that he wants to formalise matters for sensible reasons such as the requirements of the data protection legislation, and I hope that the informal group will come up with creative ideas which will make service in the House appear more attractive and, above all, ensure that we look after those who have gone on and left the House. All of us would say that the House is an enormously friendly place on a cross-party basis. A great deal of support is provided by other hon. Members to their colleagues. That must make it all the more difficult when people are turned out and cast adrift, so I am happy to welcome the motion.

Mr. David Winnick: I should like to know, if possible, whether the House wishes to conclude the debate by 7 o'clock. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] In that case, I shall not speak long. I entirely support the motion and the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton). He has done a great service to the House and for former Members.
I speak as one who was defeated in 1970, when there was no resettlement grant and the salary ended when the election was called. There is one matter that I want to emphasise, and which I raised at Business questions: the pension. I asked the Fees Office for the average pension paid to former Member and their widows in 1987. The sum was just over £4,000. Although I appreciate that the sum would have been plussed up since 1987 because of inflation, and that that is an average, we should bear in mind that there are many former Members whose pension is a pittance. When we compare that to the pension that

many hon. Members will now receive, even if their service is somewhat limited, because of the salary there is a vast difference.
If it were possible, would it be desirable for the Committee to consider whether the pension could be plussed up by more than inflation? Obviously, if that were done for former Members, it would also have to be done outside the House. There are many former Members who left as they were approaching retirement age or who were already of retirement age. Even if they had 20 years' service, bearing in mind the level of the salary in 1987 and before, the sum involved would not amount to much. I hope that the matter can be looked into.

Sir Peter Emery: To help the House complete the debate by 7 o'clock, I shall be brief. I have been assisting the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) with his proposal, and it should be made clear that Conservative Back-Benchers strongly support it.
There is something that we can do to help the House. I understand from speaking to the Chairman of the Catering Committee that he would be delighted if former Members would dine in the Dining Room on a Thursday night or a Friday lunchtime. That would greatly assist hon. Members.
I have one question to put to the Leader of the House. Can we be certain that there will be some former Members on the Committee, which will appointed under the aegis of the Speaker? It is important that their views should be heard.

Mrs. Beckett: The right hon. Gentleman makes a very sensible point, which I shall certainly take on board. It will be a matter for Mr. Speaker. but I am sure that he will agree.

Mr. Andrew Mackinlay: [Interruption.] I sense the mood of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so I shall resume my seat.

Mr. Deputy Speaker(Sir Alan Haselhurst): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay), as is the House, I am sure.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House is aware that many Members who leave the House, whether by retirement or otherwise, would welcome the opportunity to remain in contact with each other; believes also that former Members might benefit from being in touch with sources of personal advice and assistance with difficulties arising once they have left the House; and suggests that a small informal group be set up to consider how these issues might be addressed, to report to the Speaker and the Leader of the House.

Sitting suspended.

City of London (Ward Elections) Bill

(By Order)

As amended, further considered.

7 pm

Mr. John McDonnell: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My point of order, of which I gave you notice, concerns the application of the Human Rights Act 1998. I appreciate that we have trawled over this ground before, but matters have moved on since our previous debate. You will recall that, during the previous debate, the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Ms Hughes), quoted a written answer from the President of the Council, which stated:
Section 19 of the Human Rights Act 1998 does not apply to Private Bills.
We were aware of that. It went on:
However, like all legislation, any Act resulting from the passage of such a Bill can be judged in the courts, either in the UK or in Strasbourg, for its compatibility with the ECHR.
We were assured:
In future, when Private Bills are deposited, promoters will be asked to undertake a full assessment of the compatibility of their proposals with the ECHR and to make a statement setting out their conclusion as to whether the Bill is compatible or not. A Minister in the Government department within whose policy responsibilities the subject matter of the Bill falls will make a formal statement saying that he believes that the promoters have undertaken a full assessment and that he does not (or, if necessary, that he does) see any need to dispute their conclusion".—[Official Report, 11 January 2001; Vol. 360, c. 1304–5.]
Today, we have received another statement from the Bill's promoter that contains no reference to whether the Bill complies with the Human Rights Act. Are we tonight to receive a statement from the Minister in that regard? I accept that this is not a new Bill and has not been introduced today, but in the spirit of the statement made during the previous debate I would expect some statement to be made. If not, yet again, there would be no guidance from any Law Officer or the Government that the Bill complies with the Human Rights Act enacted in this Chamber.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Keith Hill): Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It may be for the convenience of the House if I make the following statement.
Hon. Members present for the previous debate on the Bill will recall that the Under Secretary gave a commitment to make a statement on Third Reading on behalf of the Government in relation to the Bill's compatibility with the European convention on human rights.
A copy of the legal assessment procured by the promoter of the Bill on its compatibility with the ECHR was sent to the Government by the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke) on 29 January 2001. The assessment concluded that the Bill is compatible with the ECHR, as has been stated in previous debates on the Bill.
Having now considered the papers, I can report to the House that I believe that a full assessment of the Bill's compatibility with the ECHR has been undertaken by the City of London corporation and I see no need to dispute the conclusions of that assessment.

Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Has the statement of compatibility with the ECHR been placed in the Library, in the domain of hon. Members? I have not seen it and I have been present throughout virtually all the debates on the Bill and took part in the debate on this very matter. If the Minister is to refer to a document that claims that the Bill is compatible with the ECHR, at the very least we should be privy to it. It has already passed from the Bill's sponsor, on behalf of the promoter, the City of London corporation, to the Government, and such an important document should not remain as private correspondence between the sponsor and the Government and we should not have to take their assurance on the matter. We should also have the right to see it.

Mr. Peter Brooke: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I think that it is generally agreed that a further debate on this subject is not likely to be in order for long. I simply remind the House that the lengths to which the promoter has gone to demonstrate compliance with human rights, including an opinion obtained from leading counsel, is a matter of record. I have shared that advice with the Under-Secretary who was on the Front Bench during our previous debate, in accordance with the invitation that she extended to me on that occasion; the Under-Secretary present this evening, the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Hill), has confirmed that.
The promoter has complied with the relevant Standing Orders and will continue to do so. Moreover, provided that the House's authorities are content, the promoter has no objection to the inclusion of a statement on compatibility appearing on the front of the Bill when it is reprinted, even if that is not a requirement of the revised Standing Orders when reprinting is undertaken. I am conscious of the Standing Order that will come into force on 27 November 2001.
I have to say in a gentle voice to Labour Members that the advice that the Government receive that enables them to say that a Bill is compatible with the appropriate convention is not subject to scrutiny in the way that has been described.

Mr. Deputy Speaker(Sir Alan Haselhurst): I am not persuaded that the matter can continue to be pursued on a point of order. In view of the procedures that have now been followed after exhaustive earlier debate, it is a matter for the House to determine, at the appropriate moment, whether it is satisfied with the statements that have been made. That can be dealt with in the further proceedings of the House. There is no further point of order for the Chair.

Mr. Corbyn: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You were the occupant of the Chair during the previous debate on the question of the Bill's compatibility with the ECHR. We have now heard that the document has passed from the promoter to the Government, but this is a private Bill, not a Government Bill. The Government are merely responding to it; it is the House's property.


Is it in order that the House should not be aware of the contents of private correspondence claiming compatibility between the promoter of a private Bill and the Government, when many hon. Members are extremely concerned that the convention might have been breached by the Bill, which does not allow free and unfettered elections as required under the convention? This is an important matter concerning the role of private Bills. I do not like the rules that apply to Government Bills, but I understand them, but this is not a Government Bill.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am satisfied that there is nothing out of order that should concern the House. This should now become a matter of debate that may influence the House's attitude to the Bill. Therefore, we should proceed with consideration of the Bill.

Clause 2

INTERPRETATION

Amendment moved [11 January]: No. 7, in page 1, line 18, at end insert—
'business electoral college" means a body comprising voters appointed under section 3(1)(c) with responsibility for electing the business voters entitled to vote in ward elections.'.—[Mr. McDonnell.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 8, in page 1, line 19, at end insert—
'employees' electoral college' means a body comprising voters appointed under section 3(1)(d) with responsibility for electing the employees' voters entitled to vote in ward elections.'.
No. 19, in clause 3, page 2, line 33, leave out from `person' to second 'a' and insert—
'elected from the business electoral college comprising voters appointed by'.
No. 56, in clause 3, page 2, line 33, leave out from 'person' to 'ordinarily' in line 34 and insert—
'elected from the business electoral college comprising voters appointed by qualifying bodies which are'.
No. 22, in clause 3, page 2, line 37, at end insert—
'(d) is a person elected from the employees' electoral college comprising voters who are employees of a qualifying body which is ordinarily in occupation for relevant purposes as owner or tenant of the whole or part of a hereditament situated in that ward which is shown in the local non-domestic rating list as having a rateable value of not less than £200.'.
No. 58, page 2, line 37, at end insert—
'(1A) The business electoral college shall reflect the range of business activity within the City, and shall comprise relevant business operational constituencies for which a qualifying body must register based upon its principal business operation; and the proportion of voters to be elected from a business operational constituency will be determined in proportion to the number of qualifying bodies registering for a particular business operational constituency in relation to the total registrations.'.

No. 57, page 2, line 37, at end insert—
'(1B) The employees' electoral college shall reflect the range of occupations operating within the City of London, and shall comprise relevant occupational constituencies for which an employee must register based upon his/her principal occupation as defined under the DFEE Standard Occupational Classification Major Groups; and the proportion of voters to be elected from an occupational constituency shall be determined in proportion to the number of employees registering for a particular occupational constituency in relation to the total registrations.'.
No. 23, page 2, line 37, at end insert—
'(1C)The number of business voters elected from the business electoral college shall be no more than 2000.'.
No. 24, page 2, line 37, at end insert—
'(1D)The number of employee voters elected from the employees' electoral college shall be no more than 2,000.'.
No. 59, page 2, line 41, at end insert—
'(2A)—(1) For the election of voters to represent the business operational and occupational constituencies within the electoral colleges, each vote in the poll shall be a single transferable vote.
(2) A single transferable vote is a vote—

(a) capable of being given so as to indicate the voter's order of preference for the candidates for election as members for the constituency; and
(b) capable of being transferred to the next choice when the vote is not needed to give a prior choice to the necessary quota of votes or when a prior choice is eliminated from the list of candidates because of a deficiency in the number of votes given for him.'.

No. 29, page 3, line 18, at end insert 'subject to subsections (1C) and (1D) above'.

Mr. McDonnell: At the weekend, we all filled in our census forms. When mine asked who I work for and what my job entails, I said that I work for my constituents and that my job is to represent their interests and to legislate in their interests. Tonight, we have the opportunity to legislate in the interests of all of London, and that is why I have tabled the amendments. We have the opportunity now to retrieve this flawed Bill—some would say fatally flawed—to save the Bill from itself and to rescue the City of London corporation, whose promotion of the Bill has been unacceptable, both in Committee and now. We are now in our third year on the Bill, during which time there has been ample opportunity to respond to the amendments, which were before the House previously.
I wish to rescue the Bill's chance of instigating a proper reform of the City of London corporation. The amendments seek to institute a reform to enable all those who live and work in the City—and, yes, who possess property—to have a say about their environment and community. I accept that the City is not only a single community, but many communities. The amendments seek to reflect the complex, diverse and yet interdependent communities that the City comprises. That includes the residents, the workers—the "employees" to whom the amendments refer, who spend their working hours in the City—and the businesses that occupy or tenant the City area.
The amendments are compromise proposals that could allow the Bill to pass through the House in a form that would make the new structure of local government and the governance of the City of London corporation so robust that it would render the City sustainable for another 800 years. They are a compromise. I recognise that they move away from the principle of one person, one vote, and accept that a business vote will continue in the City.


I understand that some of my hon. Friends will be anxious about such a compromise, but the amendments also ask for a compromise from the City of London corporation and the Bill's supporters in the House. Although they accept the continuation of the business vote, they also ask for an acceptance of workers' right to vote for the City of London corporation. That is a compromise that would not achieve what I would like—the establishment of a soviet in the centre of London—but which would balance the different communities: the residents, business and workers.
I ask the City of London corporation to advise its representative—some would add the words "on earth"—the right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster, the Bill's sponsor, and its friends in the Government, to accept these compromise amendments and to let the Bill soar on to the statute book. Failure to accept the amendments will mean that one of the key communities in the City—employees and workers—will remain disfranchised. It creates the wealth on which the City's reputation is founded, but it currently has no voice.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: On the question of workers' votes, I would like to get some answers at this early stage, as there could be some problems later. Will the workers vote on the basis of one member, one vote? Will the trade unions allow block votes? Will everybody vote on the principle of one member, one vote, or will some unions supposedly use block votes, if they want to do so? Would such votes be made on the basis of the parliamentary Labour party votes, which are divided into thirds? Finally, are we talking about the same City that 6,000 people were trying to get rid of yesterday? Is that the same City that we are trying to prop up?

Mr. McDonnell: When I commenced discussion of the amendments in our previous debate, I proposed to begin by taking hon. Members through them. My hon. Friend raises issues of detail that I shall address in due course. We are referring to the City of London. The City of London corporation covers what we euphemistically call the square mile, so he is right about that point, and I give him that assurance.

Mr. Andrew Dismore: My hon. Friend might recall an intervention that I made in our previous debate, in which I said that it might be easier for him to give us a general overview of how the amendments fitted together before he spoke in detail. Having re-read Hansard this afternoon, I am even more concerned that we are getting the detail before the overview. I am being given a lot of detail, but I am finding it difficult to fit that information together without getting the bigger picture first. I know that he has prepared his speech along those lines, but perhaps he could look further into his notes and make some comments of a more general flavour, so that we can see how it all fits together before we discuss the detail.

Mr. McDonnell: Let me address the structure of the debate and resolve this matter. I suggested that I should proceed by taking hon. Members through the amendments and examining the implications of each one. I proposed to explain their role and how they operated together to introduce the electoral college mechanism, and then to

explain their purpose and the principles on which they are based: that is, the basic premises on which they were promulgated.
Some of my hon. Friends were anxious about that approach and wanted me to give the bigger picture before I set about the detail. However, the very hon. Members who were concerned about getting bogged down in the detail then participated in a rather lengthy debate about white van men and so on—a discussion that was tedious at times. I do not want to take that route, tempting though some hon. Members might find it. Instead, I want to take a clear, decisive and expeditious route, and to set out the principles that underlie the amendments.

Mr. Harry Barnes: I find the position that my hon. Friend outlines somewhat confusing. The batch of amendments that we are considering begins with amendment No. 7. We are being given details about the nature of the electoral college, but the lead amendment asks for further consideration of the Bill to be delayed for six months. I am concerned about the arguments, because that proposal sounds somewhat different from the suggestion that he is trying to accommodate the City in order to advance the Bill's progress.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I should explain to the hon. Member that we are not discussing the proposition to which he refers and that it is not the practice of the House to do so. We are discussing the amendments whose numbers were read out at the beginning of the debate.

Mr. McDonnell: My hon. Friend is confused because of the numbering of the amendments on the amendment paper. Amendment No. 7 seeks to introduce a business electoral college. The establishment of the overall electoral college of businesses, employees and so on flows from that proposal.

Mr. Barnes: I should like to clarify the position. When I entered the Chamber, I collected an amendment paper for 2 May, the first page of which is numbered as page 201. Amendment No. 7 states that on further consideration of the Bill—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have already ruled on this matter. I must say to the hon. Gentleman that the number 7 appears on the amendment paper in parallel with the name of the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. McDonnell) and refers to what follows. All that appears above is a motion that is not part of the group of amendments.

Mr. Barnes: I apologise for being so slow, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I now understand the point that has been made.

Mr. McDonnell: Thank you for that clarification, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I do not want to speak in too much detail at this stage, but I should like to set out the principles that underlie the amendments—I shall, of course, explain their detailed implications in due course—and then argue a justification for their adoption on the basis of addressing the key concerns of each of the main political parties in the House. I hope fairly swiftly to send all hon. Members skipping through the Lobby in support of the


amendments. I hope that they will sing the "Marseillaise", even if I cannot persuade them to sing the "Internationale". Although I could explain at length to those who do not understand it the difference between the underlying principles of the two anthems, I shall not. If they wish to understand the difference, which is relevant to the amendments, between a bourgeois democracy and a workers' democracy, I simply refer them to Karl Marx's writing on the Paris Commune and V.I. Lenin's "Left-wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder".
The Bill is basically undemocratic: that is the difficulty with it and the ground on which many of us oppose it. It undermines the principle of one person, one vote. The amendments maintain that principle at least in part. I accept that the City corporation does not want to give up its undemocratic—some would say anti-democratic—Franchise, which allows for a business vote. In the Bill and the amendments, that vote is based on a property qualification, which runs contrary to every other method of democratic election in this country.
The amendments try to take account of the strong argument that has been presented in favour of maintaining the business vote. It has been argued that it is justified by the intensity of business activity in a small area. The City is a business district and I therefore accept that, to make progress, we need to create a structure of governance for that area that includes a business vote. However, I also want that structure to reflect the rights and responsibilities of the other stakeholders in the City of London corporation area.
The amendments define the stakeholders as the employees—the workers—and the residents. I am trying to develop an argument that enables us to reach a compromise and leads to a swift passage for the Bill.

Mr. Kelvin Hopkins: I have followed the debate with interest on previous occasions. My hon. Friend used the word "compromise" often this evening. Will he reassure me that he has not devised a compromise too far and that he is not conceding too much to those who take a different view from my hon. Friend and me about providing a genuinely democratic system for the City of London in future?

Mr. McDonnell: If the franchise is to be reformed, the City corporation has made it clear in statements to the House and through the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster, who sponsors the Bill, that there are some steps that it will not take. It will not relinquish the business vote or allow an amendment that provides for a straight residential vote or a combination of residential and employees' votes. In tabling amendments to provide for an electoral college, I am searching for a compromise that takes account of the three elements in the stakeholder society.

Mr. Corbyn: Will my hon. Friend remind us of the number of residential voters and the number of business votes that will be added to it by the Bill and the amendments?

Mr. McDonnell: I am told that there are approximately 5,000 residential voters, although I am open to correction.

They are currently swamped by the business votes. In the amendments, I am trying to create an electoral college, which means that residential votes are never outweighed by business or workers' votes.

Mr. Dismore: Under my hon. Friend's proposals, would residents have at least half the votes so that their votes would equal those of businesses and employees, or would each group have a third of the votes, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) suggested?

Mr. McDonnell: As we develop the debate, my hon. Friend will realise that I am trying to introduce a mechanism whereby the residents will have a permanent majority over the combined votes of business and employees. That would provide some protection for the residents.

Mr. Dismore: I am reassured by that. However, my hon. Friend said that he was trying to provide for all the stakeholders in the City. One group—customers—has been left out of the equation. If we use modern parlance and "stakeholder", customers constitute one of the most important groups. When we discuss railways or the tube, we hear about customers. However, the electorial college that my hon. Friend proposes makes no provision for the consumers of City services.

Mr. McDonnell: In a subsequent group of amendments, I have tried to provide at least the opportunity for shareholders to have a vote. I could not devise a method of including a customer vote in the amendments that we are discussing because of problems of definition, inability to register and the cost that such a vote would incur. Perhaps one day, if the City publishes its accounts, we can ascertain the exact amount that it could afford for those administrative matters.

Mr. Skinner: What about the Commission for Racial Equality? Will black business men or stakeholders have a specific proportion the votes? Will that also apply to women? Those are the two big issues of the day. Will people have to sign a document? What chance have we got if someone on the other side will not sign it? A hell of a lot of people in the stock exchange and elsewhere in the City may not sigh such a document. Another almighty row would follow.

Mr. McDonnell: The Bill and subsequent amendments make some attempt to ensure that the voters reflect the composition, including gender and ethnicity, of the companies' work forces. That matter needs to be tackled. There is a dearth of women and members of ethnic minorities on the City corporation and its various committees. However, the amendments that we are considering do not deal with that, and I shall move on.
The amendments would establish electoral colleges, comprising businesses and employees. Each would be able to determine the eventual composition of the City corporation's common council. If the amendments were


accepted, the electorate would comprise the residents, the voters elected by the business electoral college and those elected by the employees electoral college.

Mr. Robert N. Wareing: I understand that the Port of London health authority is in the City of London corporation. Would the amendments encompass it?

Mr. McDonnell: I believe that any organisation that is defined as a separate business entity and has property or employees in the City of London area would be covered by the business electoral college. There may be problems, for example, in the case of City corporation functions that are contracted out. If the contract is won in house, the workers are employees of the City corporation, not a separate business. However, a private company or separate agency that operated a service on behalf of the City corporation would be defined as a separate business and, in my view, would fall in the remit of the business college.
7.30 pm
Let me explain how the amendments that I have tabled fit together—the overview for which my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) asked. I shall consider the amendments individually and examine how they hang together. The amendments are tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn), and he and I have now worked together on them in four or five debates. I shall describe each amendment and how it contributes to the new stakeholder edifice.
Amendment No. 7 establishes the definition of a business electoral college as
a body comprising voters appointed under section 3(1)(c)
of the Bill—
with responsibility for electing the business voters entitled to vote in ward elections.
This is an indirect system of election, and there are two stages to the process. The amendment proposes that the qualifying bodies defined in lines 12 and 13 of clause 2 should be gathered together into a business electoral college. The qualifying bodies would then be enfranchised to nominate—I have retained "in writing" from the original Bill—a person to persons to represent them and vote on their behalf in the business electoral college.
Amendment No. 19 amends clause 3(c) to bring about that form of indirect election of the voter, who will eventually cast his or her vote on behalf of the qualifying bodies. The definition of "qualifying bodies" follows shortly, and basically covers the businesses themselves and certain other organisations. Those voters will then cast their votes in the overall City corporation ward elections. Amendment No. 19 therefore empowers the qualifying body to nominate its voter or voters, who will serve in the business electoral college, which will, in turn, elect the voters who will be qualified to vote.
This will be a two-stage, indirect election—there have been arguments about its complexity, but it is no more complex than the constitution of the United States of America, which provides for similar electoral colleges—which will also involve the election of a council, council leader and chairs of committees under the existing

systems of local government. I reject the insinuation that this is closer to the election of a Pope or the canonisation of a saint. It is a straightforward indirect election system.

Mr. Skinner: I want to bring this debate up to date. I do not know whether my hon. Friend has thought this through, but he sounds as though he is nominating people's peers. This would be no different. There would be people nominating someone to nominate someone to nominate someone else and, despite all my hon. Friend's best intentions of getting some decent people on to this body, we know what would happen. We would get the great and the good again, and the people at the bottom of the street would get left out.

Mr. McDonnell: I understand my hon. Friend's concerns, particularly as both our applications to be people's peers were rejected. Never mind.
The selection of people's peers—or however we like to describe them—was carried out by a committee constructed by the Prime Minister under advice. The committee then nominated the peers—that is true. Under the mechanism that I propose, there will be nomination but there will also be forms of election. There is a difference between the two examples. I accept that this is a form of indirect election, but at the end of the day the route will lead to an election, particularly within the employers' electoral college. I accept that there is an element of nomination in the business electoral college.

Mr. Dismore: Following the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), I wonder how the aldermen and the mayor fit into the picture. As I understand the rather convoluted arrangements that exist now, they are chosen from among the councillors of the City—the members of the common council—who would be chosen by the people chosen by the college, who would be chosen by the college, which would be chosen by the electorate. There could be five or six different stages before we got to the most senior positions in the council, which are the Lord Mayor of London and the aldermen. Is my hon. Friend perhaps saying that they could be the people's aldermen, elected directly under his proposed arrangements?

Mr. McDonnell: I am surprised at this lack of understanding of the arrangements by someone who has been in the Labour party for so long. The party has had the mechanism for electoral colleges for nearly a century. The amendments reflect that mechanism. The electoral college determines the voters, who turn up at a conference and elect a national executive committee, which then elects a Chair and has, in previous times, worked with the parliamentary Labour party to elect the leader of the party who has gone on to become the leader of the Government and of the country. My proposal is a reflection of a democratic practice that has gone on for some time in this country. I accept that businesses have not nominated representatives to the Labour party conference, but who knows?
Amendment No. 56 would amend clause 3(c) and, as a result, a person would become entitled to vote in any ward of the City if, on the qualifying date, that person was
elected from the business electoral college comprising the voters appointed by the qualifying bodies which are"—
ordinarily in occupation of a hereditament. I prefer the French pronunciation of that word, as it has a French origin, although other hon. Members prefer the English


pronunciation. Amendment No. 56 is a tidier and more comprehensive amendment than amendment No. 19, and it warrants support on that basis. It represents a slight variation on a theme.
Amendment No. 58 deals with the composition of the business electoral college. Its objective is to ensure that the business electoral college—the BEC—reflects the range of business activity in the City corporation. Hon. Members will understand that I am keen to ensure that the City corporation has a balanced form of representation drawn from the expertise available to it in the different professions, business operations and companies operating within the square mile.

Mr. Dismore: One thing that is starting to trouble me about this method of dealing with the issue is the question of nationality. To be a residential elector in an ordinary election in the United Kingdom, one has to be either a British or Commonwealth citizen, a citizen of the Irish Republic, or—in certain elections—a citizen of other European Union countries. It is not clear to me from the amendment whether my hon. Friend has addressed the issue of nationality. For example, in this new global economy, a business in the City whose head office and main operations were in the United States might have no real interest in the United Kingdom except for its business premises, which might be an offshoot of a conglomerate based in New York or Washington. Is my hon. Friend saying that such people should have a say in the democratic elections of the United Kingdom?

Mr. McDonnell: I am seeking to find in the Bill—perhaps its promoter can help me—a restriction that states that the voter who is eventually elected to cast a vote on behalf of a company has to be a British citizen. I accept, however, that that does not mean that the company has to have its main interest in this country. It could be a multinational corporation based elsewhere, and I accept my hon. Friend's concerns about such a company's interest in the future and in its stake in the City corporation and in this country. That is perhaps a matter that could be examined subsequently, and I am sure that the City corporation would welcome amendments to that effect.
In amendment No. 58, the City corporation is required to establish a structure of business operational constituencies within the BEC. Those constituencies would be operational, not geographical, and they should reflect the various business operations that take place in the City. Only the City corporation itself could draw up such a constituency structure, as only it has at its fingertips the required expertise and knowledge of the variety of business operations undertaken in the square mile.
The corporation would establish which groupings and businesses were interested in appointing voters to the BEC. They would be invited to register for their particular operational grouping or business operational constituency and my amendment, based on the number of businesses registering for particular operational constituencies, would ensure that voters elected from a constituency were allocated proportionately. Voters would be distributed to

the various operational constituencies in proportion to the number of qualifying bodies registered for each business operational constituency.

Mr. Skinner: rose—

Mr. McDonnell: I have obviously lost my hon. Friend.

Mr. Skinner: No, I have sussed this out—it is pretty clear. My hon. Friend has gone a long way to accommodate the people in the City. I know that he has a long-standing interest in London and all the rest of it, but something tells me that some people will get more than one vote. We have had that problem with block votes and electoral colleges; it has always been difficult to live with.
Before I go into the Lobby, I want my hon. Friend to give me an assurance. Would people in the City of London get more than one vote if they had more than one business interest? As sure as night follows day, we know that the Tories and their pals do not meddle in one business; they have their fingers in every conceivable pie. They would pile up votes left, right and centre while Joe Soap would not get one.

Mr. McDonnell: I accept that there is a weakness in the proposal. An individual shareholder or owner of a company could participate in a number of companies. As a result, he could register in not one business operational constituency in the electoral college, but several. That is a definite problem but this is a compromise Bill. However, there is further a difficulty in that a resident with a vote could hold shares in a business, which could also have a vote. The Bill is not perfect, so I am simply trying to improve it.

Mr. Barnes: Presumably, such a person could also be a City employee, so the electoral college could have three categories. A person might be involved in each and may have multiple votes.

Mr. McDonnell: The proposed voting systems are similar to those relating to the constitution of the Labour party. People may have multiple votes, depending on their membership of and affiliation to the Labour party. There is an inherent problem here, but we have identified a series of problems with the Bill and the amendment represents an attempt to arrive at a situation for which we could garner support in the Chamber. Perhaps amendments to the review mechanism, which I hope to debate later, could be tabled.

Mr. Kelvin Hopkins: I have been worrying for some minutes about my hon. Friend's reference to determining the operational and geographical constituencies according to which the election would be held. He suggested that those would be decided by the City of London corporation, but I am anxious that an external independent monitoring organisation such as the Local Government Commission has not been mentioned, even in respect of operational constituencies in the business community. Will he elaborate and reassure me? We do not want friends to be scratching each other's backs while the constituencies are determined.

Mr. McDonnell: The amendment deals with operational, not geographical, constituencies. Operational constituencies are defined as the different elements of the business electoral college that reflect the different businesses that operate in their different ways in the City. I have confidence in the City corporation, which would be able to provide an accurate definition.
Like any other organisation that acts in the public realm, the City corporation would be open to judicial review should it offend against reasonable behaviour. The Wednesbury principles, which provide that all relevant factors have to be taken into account and all irrelevant factors dismissed in determining a reasonable decision, would obviously apply to the City corporation's delineation of the business operational constituencies. Therefore, protection would be given to individual businesses and their members, residents and employees. I understand the argument for external verification, but the reality is that external verification could easily be pursued in the courts.

Mr. Dismore: I am becoming confused about the reference to operational and geographical constituencies. It is not clear whether my hon. Friend is saying that there should be an operational constituency for each ward or one for the whole City. Establishing an operational constituency for each word would be complex and a different kettle of fish. Indeed, it could lead to multiple voting of the type described by my hon. Friends. Would there be one operational constituency for the whole of the City's borders?

Mr. McDonnell: My view is that we are discussing one for the whole of the borders on the basis that elections would have to be run according to slates of candidates rather than lists of individuals. That would be manageable, given that there are only 5,000 residents. The amendment would also overcome some gerrymandering of ward boundaries, although we were given assurances by the City corporation that there would be reforms in that respect. However, I do not believe that any have been carried out.

Mr. Dismore: Now I am becoming worried. My hon. Friend referred to slates. Did he mean open party lists or closed party lists? Did he mean any kind of party list?

Mr. McDonnell: My remarks represented only a supposition, not a proposal. Rather than use geographical districts, we should pay regard to the reality of what is a business district in total. Therefore, rather than define geographical constituencies, we should define constituencies of interest in terms of the work force and the businesses. I have confidence in the City corporation being able to draw up a list of the various business operational constituencies adequately to reflect the range of activities that go on in the City of London.

Mr. Dismore: If my hon. Friend is referring to slates of one sort or another, could a particular occupation dominate in the City? Could there be a solicitors' slate, whereby a batch of solicitors could outvote all the other occupational groups? Could the stockbrokers have a slate? We would end up with what we have already, so how would the reforms help?

Mr. McDonnell: With great respect to my hon. Friend, no protection against solicitors is known to man or beast

or other, but let me explain by exemplifying how the structure would work. I shall draw on the City corporation's latest report on London's contribution to the UK economy, which was published in November 2000 and commissioned from the Centre for Economics and Business Research.
In examining the financial contribution of London and the City, the report defines the major activities and business operations in the London and City economy. Therefore, it describes the industrial or business composition of the City of London area. It also shows that operational constituencies could readily be drawn up, although I accept that they could be numerous.
The report says, for example, that separate operational constituencies could be established for banking, finance, insurance, business services and leasing as well as for service sectors including communications, transport, storage, distribution, hotels and catering. The amendment would allow for that. Alternatively, business operational constituencies could be constructed that would delineate a company with multiple roles and then determine which role was dominant within that company, or the company could opt for a particular business operational constituency.
The corporation may wish to group businesses in broader and less numerous business operational constituencies. For example, banking and finance might form one group, insurance a second, business services a third, and distribution, communications, hotels and catering a fourth. If the amendment were accepted, the corporation's town clerk would invite all qualifying bodies—by advertisement and by letter—to register, allowing them to opt for a particular business operational constituency. The town clerk—I believe that the City corporation describes him as the chamberlain—could be required to investigate the appropriateness of a qualifying body's registering within a particular operational constituency, if the registration was challenged. There would therefore be an element of protection against abuse of that kind, and against practices that would constitute manipulation of votes.

Mr. Corbyn: I apologise for having missed part of my hon. Friend's speech: I had to pop out briefly.
In the case of a business involved in multiple operations and performing a number of different functions, how would the clerk decide on the sector to which that business should be allocated?

Mr. McDonnell: I think that it would be open to the business to opt for a sector, and to demonstrate that it was opting for the sector in which most of its activity lay, by reference to its accounts. Its trading practices could point to the operational constituency in which it would fit.

Mr. Corbyn: I take the point, but the profitability of one sector or another might well not be synonymous with the labour-intensity involved—the number of people employed. The Bill might give more votes to fewer people because those people produced more cash for the company, rather than giving more votes to a larger


number constituting, essentially, a service within the company. The latter group might well be disfranchised, or at least have a reduced franchise.

Mr. McDonnell: Registration in the business electoral college is based on status as a business, not as an employer. Employees will be eligible for the employees' electoral college under the proposed system.

Mr. Skinner: What happens when there is a takeover? We know that business is global now. That means that foreign firms become involved, but presumably they will not have votes at the outset. How will they get votes distributed once they have taken over British firms? This sort of thing is happening all the time. Moreover, banking firms are moving into production, consumerism and so forth.
The more I hear about this proposal, the more I perceive that it contains the seeds of its own destruction. I am not all together happy with the great effort that my hon. Friend is making in regard to the electoral college. Furthermore, I want to know whether there will be a cap on political spending in the so-called constituencies, because I envisage a lot of fiddling.

Mr. McDonnell: I would expect the normal rules pertaining to local government elections to apply to expenditure controls. As for takeovers, mergers and the like, they are an inevitable part of commercial life. In the event of a takeover, if a business changed its operation it would move into another category at a subsequent election.

Mr. Dismore: What worries me is the possibility that a business would plump to go into an operational group that was under-represented, thus maximising its vote, perhaps out of all proportion to its real operational activity.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) mentioned election spending. Election spending is calculated, per voter, on the basis of residential qualification. How can that possibly work in terms of employees, of whom there may be a million? Will there be a million 10 pences to be spent, or will the system be run in a different way?

Mr. McDonnell: That could well come within the remit of the new Electoral Commission, which is examining electoral practices overall. I think that the calculation should be done on the basis of a straightforward single amount for a business, rather than a quota basis relating to employment or turnover, but that is a matter for subsequent discussion.
Certainly the issue of plumping between business operational constituencies needs to be tackled. I think the town clerk should be responsible for ensuring the appropriateness of a location within a business operational constituency, although that is open to challenge. A business might try to disguise its overall operation illegally: it might apparently be operating in one field but plumping in another. That would be a matter for the town clerk to investigate.

Mr. Hopkins: Is there not a striking similarity between the system proposed by my hon. Friend and the system

adopted by the TUC general council in regard to industrial groups? The difference is that the earlier arrangement was determined by a democratic set-up, elected by ordinary people year on year Any irregularities or changes were monitored, and voted on democratically. This proposed system, however, is open to abuse: that is suggested by all that has been said so far. The problem is that the City corporation, rather than an external, independent body, will determine the arrangements.

Mr. McDonnell: As we are both ex-TUC apparatchiks, my hon. Friend and I understand the flaws in the TUC system. However, when I deal with the employees' electoral college my hon. Friend will note that it strongly reflects the TUC's voting structure and occupational groupings.

Mr. Dismore: My hon. Friend said that the town clerk would determine whether a business was plumping. Would the determination be on the basis of the town clerk's own inquisitorial powers to look into the matter following a complaint from an aggrieved person, and would a business feeling that it had been ruled against unjustly have the right of appeal?

Mr. McDonnell: According to normal practice in local government, when a matter is drawn to the attention of the chief executive or the monitoring officer—in this case, the town clerk—that is done on the basis of a complaint. Generally, however, that person will have powers of inquiry. Any further appeal is normally made either to the courts or, in some instances, to the Secretary of State. I think there is an opportunity here at least to instigate some form of appeal.

Mr. Corbyn: I am sorry to return to the issue of the Human Rights Act 1998, but my hon. Friend will be aware that under that Act every citizen who feels aggrieved about any matter has a right to have the matter determined by an independent body—independent, that is, of those making the decision in the first place. Clearly the town clerk, as an employee of the council, can hardly be deemed independent of his own decisions and therefore able to take an objective view of them. There must either be recourse to the courts, or recourse to a similarly constituted, duly independent body. That is now a provision in the European convention on human rights, and in the 1998 Act, with which the Bill must comply.

Mr. McDonnell: Any business person, any employee and any resident could, under the amendments, challenge the wrongful registration of a business within a business operational constituency. The town clerk would operate in the same way as the monitoring officer within local councils. The monitoring officer is seen to be independent, not operating at the behest of the political officers of the council or on behalf of the council itself, in undertaking a review and therefore a decision. My hon. Friend is right, however: there is a right of appeal to courts of law under the amendments, as there would be in other circumstances.
Votes in the business electoral college will be allocated to each operational constituency on the basis of the proportion of registrations for each business operational constituency.


I was tempted to introduce a market performance incentive to the system by suggesting that the allocation of votes could be based upon the financial contribution of that particular sector to the City economy, or even more radically upon how many staff the businesses or a particular sector employed—but economically incentivising democratic participation was rejected as being too challenging and almost too Thatcherite.
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Amendment No. 23 limits the number of voters elected from the business electoral college to no more than 2,000. There will be about 5,000 residential voters—residents qualify under clause 3(1)(b) of the Bill. They will still continue to qualify for votes in City corporation elections. It is important that we protect the residents from being swamped by either business or employee voters, or a combination of the two. The amendment would cap the number of business voters elected from the business electoral college at 2,000, but I emphasise that it would not cap the number of voters eligible to be nominated by qualifying bodies to the business electoral college itself at the first stage of the indirect elections.

Mr. Skinner: Will those be recorded votes? If so, people with tons of money will be buying them. It only needs someone like, say, Maxwell to come on the scene and to buy votes and all the rest of it. If they are recorded votes, he has got them in his pocket. He could be switching pension funds left, right and centre; he could be running the show before we could say Jack Robinson.

Mr. McDonnell: I have not addressed in these amendments the issue of whether the votes will be recorded, or whether they will be by secret ballot. I have taken it as inherent in the democratic system of this country that all elections for a section of local governance of any nature would be by secret ballot, although that matter may be addressed in subsequent amendments. Alternatively, if we pass the Bill tonight, it may be addressed in the subsequent first report that is instigated under the legislation to review the operation of the new system.

Mr. Dismore: I pick up my hon. Friend's point about the balance between the business vote, the employee vote and the residential vote. It was my impression that the residents would still continue to work in the historic wards that go back to mediaeval times, with those wonderful ancient names. Is he effectively saying that the amendments would sweep away all those great traditions of history and that residents would have to vote as part of the overall amorphous square mile mass, breaking down the historic traditions of the little wards in which they live?

Mr. McDonnell: I would not wish to break down the honorific functions of the individual wards. I have maintained that tradition, which has been built up since mediaeval days. However, I envisage one single entity: the City corporation voting area. It is not, to be frank, unlike one of the individual wards of any particular borough within London. In fact, the residential population in an individual borough ward is probably higher than it is in the square mile as we know it.

Mr. Barnes: If I understand my hon. Friend correctly, he is saying that there would be at out 5,000 votes for

residents. His amendments give 2,000 to businesses and 2,000 to employees, so there is a possibility that residents could rule the roost if they acted together. That has some attractions, but normally under electoral college provisions, especially those taken from the Labour party, which has seemed to influence a great deal of my hon. Friend's ideas, the practice is a third, a third, a third—no single group begins to dominate another. Can he explain why he has not picked up that particular position?

Mr. McDonnell: Let me go through it step by step. I am sure that hon. Members would welcome the idea that the objective is to protect the residential vote—the residents themselves. The amendment would ensure that no stakeholder group—my hon. Friend is right—was able to predominate over the residential voters. That would set in the constitution of the City corporation what in effect is being set in the Bill: the primacy of the residential qualification as against qualification by business presence or ownership, and qualification by presence in the City as an employee.
My hon. Friend is correct: it is primus inter pares. The residents are prime in terms of their status within the hierarchy. We need to protect the residential vote. That protection would be in the Bill if the amendments went through. It is an acceptance that the residential vote. because it reflects the overall tenure of democracy and every other section of government structure in this country, must be primarily protected.

Mr. Corbyn: I support the amendments and, as my hon. Friend will know, I have endorsed them in any event, but another amendment perhaps needs to be considered: whether there should be a positive disbarment on people voting in both the residential and the business sector. It does not seem clear whether the amendments cover that issue. People could have two votes.

Mr. McDonnell: There may be some opportunity to draft such an amendment at a later date or during one of the regular reviews. I have not undertaken that task with this batch of amendments, largely because I felt that it was too complex and unwieldy.
The point of the first group of amendments is that they go some way towards a compromise, acknowledging that the electoral principles of the City corporation have come partly into line with those underlying the remainder of local government in this country: the primacy of the residential vote. The electoral qualification is and should be based on residency but, because we accept that it is a business district, other factors should be taken into account when determining qualification to vote—business operation and employment.

Mr. Dismore: Can I put a suggestion to my hon. Friend? It seems that he is creating an enormous, complex bureaucracy that will no doubt cost a lot of money to administer. Has he considered simply using existing City structures to corporate the business college: the City livery companies and the guilds? There is already a prototype format. It would not take a great deal to tart them up a bit to meet the basic principles that he is trying to advance.

Mr. McDonnell: Later, I shall address that issue. In effect, this group of amendments does that. They are a


reconstitution in a democratic form of the old system of guilds, but within what we describe as business operational constituencies.
Amendment No. 8 defines an employees' electoral college as a body comprising voters who have been appointed—again, indirect election—and who have responsibility for electing the employees' voters, who are then entitled to vote in the ward elections for the City corporation. By ward elections I mean the election overall: the general election within the City corporation for the common council. The employees' electoral college is a straight comparison with the business electoral college.
Amendment No. 22 amends clause 3 by inserting a description of how the employees' electoral college will be formed. The electoral college will be based on a form of employees' or workers' suffrage. The amendment enfranchises employees who are employed within the City of London. They will be eligible to elect from among themselves their colleagues, who will then serve in an electoral college reserved solely for employees: for workers.
Those members of the employees' electoral college will in turn be eligible to elect voters, who will be qualified to cast their votes in elections for the City corporation for the first time since the original days of the guilds. It returns to the mechanism originally envisaged when the City corporation was established and empowered under the monarchy.

Mr. Dismore: Is the definition of employee that my hon. Friend is using for the purposes of his franchise the same as that which commonly applies in employment law, or has he another in mind?

Mr. McDonnell: We should maintain a consistency across legislation, and the definition will be that which is within employment law. My hon. Friend will have some points to make on that, but consistency is important as the matter has an impact on registration.

Mr. Hopkins: I am interested in my hon. Friend's description of the employees' electoral college. I am concerned about whether the employee representatives will be independent of their employers. In other industries and the business world, we have trade unions, which guarantee protection for workers. Where trade unions do not exist, we see token representative organisations and staff associations, which are under the control and influence of the employer. How independent will the representatives be, and what guarantee will we have of their independence?

Mr. McDonnell: It is not for this Bill to encompass those forms of protection, but there is the potential for protection in law for employees against intimidation by employers in no matter what respect of their activities. Some of this Government's trade union legislation would provide some protection, but I would welcome any further amendments that my hon. Friend might feel were needed.

Mr. Dismore: On the definition of employee, I am sure that my hon. Friend has had many letters—as have I—

about the people affected by IR35, whose employment position is somewhat anomalous in terms of employment legislation; they are not technically employees but, for taxation purposes, they seem to be becoming employees. Bearing in mind how many people in the City are probably working under the terms of IR35, where would they fit into his mechanism? Are they employees or not? If not, will they be disfranchised?

Mr. McDonnell: Under that definition, they would be seen as employees; otherwise they would fall outside the system altogether and would not be eligible for membership of the employees' electoral college. They might then be eligible for membership of the business operational constituencies of the business electoral college because they would be seen almost as self-employed. My own view is to corral them into the employees' electoral college.

Mr. Skinner: What are we talking about here? Is it sweetheart unions? Is it just one union? Is it unions without strikes? Is it a works council? My hon. Friend chose his words carefully in response to the earlier intervention about the trade unions from my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Mr. Hopkins). We ought to get this straight; is this the German system, or what is it?

Mr. McDonnell: Within the City corporation, very few employees operate within trade unions. Much as my hon. Friend and I may wish employees in the City to be trade unionists and their trade unions to represent them in some form through the employees electoral college, I do not believe that that is feasible at this stage. However, our proposal may be an incentive for trade union organisation within the City corporation, so that employees can come together and mobilise colleagues' votes to pursue policies through the City corporation.

Mr. Dismore: It seems to me that my hon. Friend is actually proposing a disincentive to join a trade union. If the employee franchise were organised around the trade union system, that would be an incentive to join, as those concerned would get their vote within the system. What my hon. Friend proposes means, effectively, that it does not matter whether someone is a member of a trade union or not; they still get the vote. It would be much simpler to ask the trade unions to organise the franchise vote—they are used to organising elections, under the control of the Electoral Reform Society—to get rid of all the enormous superstructure that my hon. Friend seems to be creating, at great public expense.

Mr. McDonnell: It may well be that that mechanism could be used in future, but it is open to us at the moment to facilitate the trade union role within the City of London corporation through this Bill, although that might be an incentive for a form of organisation at a subsequent date.

Mr. Dismore: I wish to refer to the status of office holders who are not employees within the terms of employment legislation. For example, police officers who work for the City of London police are not employees, but hold the office of constable. Also, some of those who


work for the Port of London Authority are, I suspect, office holders rather than employees. Throughout the City, one finds all these ancient offices—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Interventions are becoming far too long. An intervention should be brief. If hon. Members wish to develop arguments about this group of amendments, they should seek to catch my eye later.

Mr. McDonnell: Thank you for your protection, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon makes a valid point about office holders. I have sought in another amendment to delete the reference to office holders from the Bill, as that could produce a problem of corrupt practices. I understand that it might have a deleterious effect on others. The indirect form of election in the employees' electoral college mirrors that of the business electoral college, except in one instance.
Amendment No. 57 seeks to ensure that the employees' electoral college reflects the range of occupations operating within the City of London. My aim is to ensure that there is a balance between the occupations and the expertise that can be drawn upon in electing the employees' voters. I propose that the employees' electoral college be composed of occupational constituencies. Under the amendment, employees will be invited to register for their respective occupational constituency.
The constituencies that I have suggested are not geographical but occupational and should be based upon the Department for Education and Employment's standard occupational classification major groups. This classification categorises the various occupational groupings within our economy. These were recently changed. The changes received a fair amount of publicity because they were relatively contentious in terms of definition. Naturally, some of the groupings will be less relevant to the City of London or, in some instances, totally irrelevant: for example, agricultural occupations. If so, there will be either few or no employees registering in these categories.
As the amendment would ensure also that votes allocated within the employees' electoral college—the EEC; a provocative title if ever there was one—are to be in proportion to the number of employees registering for each category, set against the overall total registered, it can be seen that categories of no or low registration do not undermine the concept or structure of the electoral college. This goes back to the roots of the City of London corporation in the original guilds. Here we have occupations grouped within occupational constituencies; in fact, we are now re-establishing the guilds in all but name. It is a form of guild socialism developed by Pannekoek, the Dutch socialist, in the last century.
As with the business electoral college, I am proposing that the number of employee voters elected from the employees' electoral college be limited to no more than 2,000. This will mean, under the amendment, that the employees will not be able to swamp the residential voters or combine with the business voters to swamp the residents' interests. However, there will be opportunities of combinations between residents and employees versus business interests, or vice versa; that is the fair play of democracy.

Rateable value is an issue addressed in the Bill, because qualification will be based on it, in some form.

Mr. Wareing: I am a little mystified about how some of the people who work in the City will be categorised. My hon. Friend mentioned those who work in banks and in transport, but what about cleaning ladies? Where do they fit in? For example, would a cleaning lady employed by a bank fit into the banking and finance section? What about academics who teach in colleges in the City of London?

Mr. McDonnell: I apologise to my hon. Friend, but I have left behind the note that I received from the Library which lists the major groups in the Department for Education and Employment's standard occupational classification. It classifies people not with regard to their business operations but in relation to their profession, such as solicitor or teacher. I can supply my hon. Friend with the information later, but I am not sure which category cleaners would come under. However, the categorisation reflects the intent of his comments. It ensures that the electoral college reflects comprehensively all those activities that the employees undertake and is grouped according to the work that they undertake, rather than the business that employs them.

Mr. Wareing: It seems to me that no matter what work is done by an individual in a bank, say, it would make sense for him to cast a vote in that section, because he would know the people involved. I gave cleaning ladies as an example, but there are many others who are spread out over diverse operations and should cast a vote within the operation that employs them.

Mr. McDonnell: That is exactly what the amendment will achieve. It will group people who have a commonality of interest as a result of the work that they do, not as a result of the company for which they work. However, my hon. Friend may wish to examine subsequent amendments on qualifying bodies that consider how other groups of employees could exercise their vote.

Mr. Dismore: How does my hon. Friend envisage the nationality qualification applying to employee votes?

Mr. McDonnell: The City corporation has been helpful on that point in the past—anyone entitled to vote in the City of London area also has to qualify under the national and local government legislation that applies elsewhere with regard to citizenship. It is open to debate, now that our society is changing, whether other forms of citizenship will arise at a later date, especially in relation to the European Union.
In terms of the business electoral college and the employees electoral college amendments, I have adhered to the requirement of the original clause in the Bill that the qualifying body should be ordinarily in occupation for relevant purposes as owner or tenant of the whole of or part of a hereditament situated in that ward that is shown in the local non-domestic rating list as having a rateable value of not less than £200. I have done that for simplicity's sake and in a spirit of compromise. My hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr. Cohen) has criticised that level as too low in previous debates. However, my amendment, which caps the number of


voters derived from each electoral college, would serve more effectively to balance sectional interests than a crude hike in the rateable value qualification.

Mr. Hopkins: I worry about the robustness of the democratic arrangements for the employees' electoral college. I am concerned about whether individuals will feel free to put themselves forward, lest they incur the displeasure of managers and those representing employers. When people cast their votes, will they feel genuinely free to do so, and will they feel that the secret ballot is genuinely secret?

Mr. McDonnell: There will be opportunities for abuse, as exist in any electoral system. That is why the City corporation should have opportunities to examine codes of practice by which companies, individuals and others will have to abide in the operation of the system. For the GLA elections, hon. Members will recall that we endorsed a set of electoral rules to apply to those elections—

Mr. Brooke: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now proposed.

Question put, That the Question be now proposed:—

The House proceeded to a Division.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Sylvia Heal): I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.

The House having divided: Ayes 99, Noes 36.

Division No. 201]
[8.26 pm


AYES


Amess, David
Forth, Rt Hon Eric


Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James
Foster, Don (Bath)


Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)
Garnier, Edward


Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)
Gill, Christopher


Baker, Norman
Gillan, Mrs Cheryl


Ballard, Jackie
Gray, James


Beggs, Roy
Greenway, John


Beith, Rt Hon A J
Grieve, Dominic


Bercow, John
Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie


Blunt, Crispin
Hawkins, Nick


Boswell, Tim
Hill, Keith


Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia
Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)


Brady, Graham
Jack, Rt Hon Michael


Brooke, Rt Hon Peter
Jenkin, Bernard


Browning, Mrs Angela
Jenkins, Brian


Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)
King, Andy (Rugby & Kenilworth)


Burnett, John
King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)


Butterfill, John
Kirkbride, Miss Julie


Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)
Laing, Mrs Eleanor



Lansley, Andrew


Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)
Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)



Lilley, Rt Hon Peter


Chope, Christopher
Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)


Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
MacGregor, Rt Hon John



McIntosh, Miss Anne


Colman, Tony
MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew


Cormack, Sir Patrick
Maclean, Rt Hon David


Cotter, Brian
McLoughlin, Patrick


Davey, Edward (Kingston)
Madel, Sir David


Davies, Quentin (Grantham)
Mates, Michael


Day, Stephen
Maude, Rt Hon Francis


Donohoe, Brian H
May, Mrs Theresa


Duncan, Alan
Moore, Michael


Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter
Nicholls, Patrick


Evans, Nigel
O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)



Ottaway, Richard
Swayne, Desmond


Paice, James
Syms, Robert


Paterson, Owen
Taylor, Sir Teddy


Pearson, Ian
Timms, Stephen


Randall, John
Tonge, Dr Jenny


Redwood, Rt Hon John
Tredinnick, David


Rendel, David
Tyler, Paul


Robathan, Andrew
Walter, Robert


Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)
Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann


Ross, William (E Lond'y)
Willis, Phil


St Aubyn, Nick
Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)


Sanders, Adrian
Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)


Simpson, Keith (Mid—Norfolk)
Yeo, Tim


Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)
Young, Rt Hon Sir George


Soames, Nicholas



Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John
Tellers for the Ayes:


Steen, Anthony
Mrs. Jacqui Lait and


Stunell, Andrew
Mr. Peter Bottomley.




NOES


Bailey, Adrian
Mallaber, Judy


Barnes, Harry
Marshall—Andrews, Robert


Bell, Martin (Tatton)
Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)


Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield)
Palmer, Dr Nick


Campbell—Savours, Dale
Pickthall, Colin


Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)
Pound, Stephen


Cook, Frank (Stockton N)
Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)


Corbyn, Jeremy
Russell, Bob (Colchester)


Cousins, Jim
Salter, Martin


Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)
Skinner, Dennis


Godman, Dr Norman A
Taylor, David (NW Leics)


Golding, Mrs Llin
Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)


Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)
Trickett, Jon


Hopkins, Kelvin
Vis, Dr Rudi


Iddon, Dr Brian
Wareing, Robert N


Jones, Dr Lynne (Selly Oak)
Wyatt, Derek


Keen, Alan (Feltham & Heston)



Llwyd, Elfyn
Tellers for the Noes:


Mackinlay, Andrew
Mr. Andrew Dismore and


Mahon, Mrs Alice
Mr. John McDonnell.

It appearing on the report of the Division that fewer than 100 Members voted in the majority, MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER declared that the Question had not been decided in the affirmative.

Mr. McDonnell: I am glad that we have been allowed to continue the debate on the amendment because it is so critical. I am a third of the way through my speech and wish to present my arguments to the House. I believe that they will enable me to engender sufficient support to ensure that the Bill will be amended in a suitable form.

Mr. Corbyn: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I notice that you said that fewer than 100 Members had voted in the Division and that the debate must continue. That is absolutely right. However, we seem to have been here before with this particular miracle number of 99. Can you assure me that you are satisfied that the figure is correct and that someone is not about to run into the Chamber with a piece of paper saying that a hanging chad has been found in the Aye Lobby and that, by some miracle, a Jeb Bush lookalike will announce that 100 Members actually voted? Are you satisfied that we are in order in continuing this interesting debate with the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. McDonnell)?

Madam Deputy Speaker: It is a not question of whether the Chair is satisfied; it is a matter for the Tellers.

Mrs. Jacqui Lait: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I reassure the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) that I personally counted everyone through the Lobby? The hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) did not disagree with my figure at any stage.

Mr. Stephen Pound: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I assure you that as I was in no way involved in the telling, it is almost certain that the figure is accurate?

Madam Deputy Speaker: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that comment.

Mr. Dismore: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I can certainly confirm what my fellow Teller, the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait), said. I watched very closely—particularly when we got into the 90s—to make sure that the count was accurate. I absolutely confirm that 99 is the correct figure.

Madam Deputy Speaker: I thank the hon. Gentleman. I am sure that hon. Members are reassured that both Tellers are satisfied with the figure.

Mr. McDonnell: It is further evidence of the achievements of the Government's educational policy that mathematics has improved so dramatically in this country in the space of just three months.

Mrs. Lait: May I inform the hon. Gentleman that I learned my mathematics in Scotland when the Conservatives were running the country?

Mr. Tony Benn: That is why the Conservatives have no Members in Scotland.

Mr. McDonnell: There is a problem with counting the Conservative party's votes in Scotland, but it has never been one of large numbers.
Let me proceed with my description of the amendments by returning to discussion of the employees electoral college. An argument has been made by the City corporation and by hon. Members that a college of the composition as determined in amendment No. 59 is not feasible because it is not practical to construct a register of employees eligible to vote for the members of the college. They also argue that such a register is not verifiable, is too costly or is too cumbersome to construct. That case has been advanced during informal discussions and formal debate in both the Committee and the Chamber.
I find that argument extraordinary, and want to confront it now and knock it out of court. Let us grind our heels in the face of it. Numerous mechanisms exist not only to record the employment of individuals by a particular company, but to be used by statutory bodies on a regular basis to effect the implementation of laws enacted by Parliament.

Mr. Tony Benn: I am sorry that I did not hear the earlier part of my hon. Friend's speech, but how would self-employed freelancers find a place on the register?

Mr. McDonnell: They would register under the business electoral college as individual self-employed

businesses and would not he covered by the employees' electoral college. I forgive my right hon. Friend for not following all of my speech, exciting though it may have been. I could revisit some of the issues for him, but that might not be appropriate.
To comply with existing legislation, every firm will have a record of its employees—its work force—for national insurance and taxation purposes, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon referred earlier. Every firm has a record of its employees for health and safety purposes. In addition, many have a record of the trade union membership of their employees. Those records are readily available, and the construction of an employees' register would be no more difficult, costly or cumbersome to establish. Recent legislation makes it possible to draw on such information for industrial relations matters and other purposes.

Mr. Dismore: Is there a qualification for the length of employment, in the same way as someone has to be employed for a certain number of months before he receives the employment rights that entitle him to redundancy pay? Does my hon. Friend envisage that an employee would have voting rights from day one, which is when many employment rights apply, or would the employee have to work in the City for a given period before acquiring them?

Mr. McDonnell: Amendments on qualifying bodies and the qualifying period relate to the length of time for which a business or director has a connection with the City. Indeed, the City corporation is covered by provisions on such connections. My firm opinion is that employees should have rights from day one.

Mr. Wareing: My hon. Friend has not mentioned part-time workers. Do the amendments cover them?

Mr. McDonnell: Any employee is eligible for registration under the scheme, including part-time workers. A growing number of people work part time in the City. My hon. Friend mentioned cleaners and other workers. They would be open for registration.
The registers demonstrate the facility to construct a register of employees. Even if the records did not exist or were not accessible, it would not be beyond the wit of employees to compile a register within their firm of people who were eligible to vote. That could be organised by trade unions, as was mentioned earlier. I am sure that they would assist in the role of registration.
The registration list would be open to verification or investigation by the City corporation's town clerk on demand, or as a result of a challenge by any individual or qualifying body, similar to the way in which the business electoral college could be challenged.

Mr. Hopkins: I am concerned about the assembly of the register of employee voters. In normal elections it can be difficult to persuade people to put their names forward to be electors. There may be a large number of employees who would not bother to do so, and that might undermine the whole democratic basis of the elections and effectively invalidate them. If only a tiny minority of people chose to become electors, the situation would be like that in


Britain before the 1832 Reform Act was passed. What mechanism would exist to ensure that all employees were properly registered and exercised their right to vote?

Mr. McDonnell: I do not believe that voluntary registration by employees would be a problem. It imposes no burdens on the person registering and would be seen as an entitlement. Many people would consider it an honour to be registered as an elector in the City of London corporation area.

Mr. Tony Benn: It has been strongly argued that the whole basis of the Bill, as promoted by the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke), is the unique nature of the City which arises from the nature of the work that goes on there. That being so, is there any reason why retired workers should not have a vote? Someone who has retired will have retained the expertise that he acquired at work. As I understand it, my hon. Friend is trying to move from a catchment-based to an experience-based electorate, so has he given any consideration to the possibility that retired workers should be entitled to put their experience at the disposal of those who are elected to serve in the wards?

Mr. McDonnell: It is interesting that my right hon. Friend raises that point, because I have based the employees electoral college on the TUC model for the registration of unions and individual memberships, which was mentioned earlier. The trade union movement has debated whether retired members should not only be able to maintain their membership in the retired members section, but have an entitlement to a full vote in all trade union activities. Interestingly, trade unions have dealt with that problem in different ways.
I have not addressed that matter here, but it is open to debate. As my right hon. Friend suggested, it is clear that there will be a need, particularly as we move beyond the fixed retirement age, for greater flexibility to enable people to participate in democratic structures, especially within the City corporation. That needs to be considered, but I have narrowly defined an employee as someone who has a formal contract with a particular firm and is therefore registered with it for taxation and national insurance purposes.
The amendment does not place a duty on the individual to register, but provides that the employee can exercise his right to register. That addresses the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Mr. Hopkins).

Mr. Barnes: Is not voluntary registration a dangerous precedent? In this country's election system generally, it is obligatory to register if one meets certain conditions. To mix up the different elements of the college so that some people, as residents, would have a duty to register and others could voluntarily do so would create a dangerous precedent.

Mr. McDonnell: My hon. Friend, who is an expert on electoral systems, has over two decades developed ideas for electoral registration reform, and I appreciate his point. I am trying to argue that we are not placing a duty on the individual. However, he is right to say that this is different from every other registration arrangement for local or

national elections in this country, in which there is a legal duty to register and failure to do so is punishable in law by a fine.

Mr. Skinner: Who will pay for the elections? Will there be free distribution of literature? What about the homeless people in the City? As a result of the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes), we have just legislated to enable homeless people to vote for the first time. Is my hon. Friend telling me that, in 2001, he is proposing a system that will give a vote to all the homeless people who hang around the City in the naive belief that people with a lot of money will give them a handout—Although, of course, they will not? Will homeless people get a vote? By the way, will the Opposition get Short money? My hon. Friend has to think the whole thing through, otherwise people will not buy it.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is going slightly beyond the scope of the debate.

Mr. McDonnell: May I deal with the question of homeless people and knock the matter on the head? In the residential vote, residents—people with a residential qualification who live within the area—will be entitled to vote. Arthur Scargill, for instance, has a flat in the Barbican—socialist that he is, he would be able to register to vote. People sleeping rough on the streets of the City of London would be eligible to vote as residents of the City. Legislative changes promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for North—East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) enable rough sleepers to register to vote elsewhere in the country and, similarly, they would be able to vote in the City. That would overcome the problem.
With respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover, the matter that he raised does not relate to the amendment. With regard to funding the whole system, as I have said in previous debates, City cash available to the City of London corporation is never audited and is never published in accounts. It should be audited in published accounts to pay for the new electoral system.

Mr. Wareing: I look forward to the day when Arthur Scargill becomes Lord Mayor of London. I understand how the provision would work within geographical boundaries at a by-election. However, what provision would be made in the event of one of the employee representatives in the electoral college passing away?

Mr. McDonnell: The electoral college would come into being prior to the City of London corporation election. Under the amendment, the employees' electoral college would meet to elect voters who would eventually vote for the City of London corporation. Because the college would be elected by groups of employees within occupational constituencies, it would be open to a group of employees to elect a replacement within the relevant time scale. That would be the norm under any electoral system that is established. There would be one meeting of electoral college voters who would then determine the voters who elect the corporation.

Mr. Corbyn: My hon. Friend inadvertently slipped into a difficult area a few minutes ago. He mentioned that the costs of the election would be borne by the City of


London. In fact, the norm in all United Kingdom elections is for the Home Office to bear the cost of electoral registration and, I believe, of electoral administration. Is there a different proposal for the City of London? Would an extra burden be placed on it or would it be borne by the Home Office, as is normal with other elections?

Mr. McDonnell: I believe that an exception should be made for the City of London corporation because it is awash with money. No one can get their hands on that money and no one knows where the City cash is tucked away. It is treated as a private fund inherited from mediaeval times and is not audited publicly. In my view, the amendment could be a lever that opens those books for inspection.

Mr. Tony Benn: On the question of money, it is a principle of the residential vote that residents pay council tax, so they get represented. There is no taxation without representation. Does my hon. Friend's amendment introduce the idea of representation without taxation? Surely, there must be mutuality. If somebody is entitled to vote in an election, he or she should also contribute by paying council tax. As I understand it, the business electoral college proposed by my hon. Friend does not lay upon electors with the right to vote any personal responsibility for council tax, which is a significant breach of the basic electoral principle.

Mr. McDonnell: It does not breach that principle because two thirds of local government expenditure comes from national Government. The businesses therefore have a right to exercise their vote at the local level as well, because of their contribution through the business rates to the national coffers, which is distributed down to the City corporation and others. The individual employees contribute through national taxation, which funds local government by two thirds. In some ways, the system of employees electoral colleges could root out some of the rotten borough corrupt practices which continue to be reported and alleged. It would give greater transparency to business and employee registers and would assist in overcoming the registration of voters at accommodation addresses. I shall not go into the detail of the reports of the corrupt practices that need to be eradicated, but I refer hon. Members to the City of London and Dockland Times of 22 May last year.

9 pm

Mr. Dismore: My hon. Friend spoke about the people elected to the college casting their vote at a meeting. Can he explain how those arrangements fit in with the new arrangements for postal and proxy voting? The regulations are, of course, much more liberal now. Can he also tell me whether employees voting for their representative in the college will be entitled to a personal or proxy vote, as that raises certain questions, and whether members of the college will be entitled to a personal or proxy vote?

Mr. McDonnell: The same regulations that pertain to national and local government personal and proxy votes would pertain to votes within the electoral colleges and to the votes exercised by the voters elected from those electoral colleges, which go on to elect the City corporation.
The final amendment, No. 59—

Mr. Hopkins: Before my hon. Friend goes on, I am concerned about elections within the employee's constituency and the employer's constituency, and I am worried about my hon. Friend's comments about rotten boroughs. One of the mechanisms that makes our democracy work is the party system. If people do not know candidates as individuals, at least they know which political party they represent. Does my hon. Friend envisage political parties being given rights to campaign in both the employers group and the employees group to make the system meaningful and democratic, so that those voting would understand who the candidates were?

Mr. McDonnell: There are problems relating to the scale of the election. I understand that. The issues must be addressed, and that could be done in the review report for which the legislation provides. The report would come before the House. My hon. Friend may wish to take up the matter in three years, when my further amendment takes effect and provides for that report.

Mr. Skinner: How does my hon. Friend propose to deal with the problem of voter apathy? Perhaps he will tell us all the answer. If we crack the problem in the City of London, we have a chance everywhere else.

Mr. McDonnell: There is no problem of voter apathy in the City of London. The measure would provide the opportunity to serve in a form of local government that controls vast sums, exercises massive powers, beyond some of the powers of existing local councils and London boroughs, and provides possibly the greatest opportunity for municipal travel in all of local government. I do not believe that there will be any shortage of candidates coming forward to stand for election or any shortage of voters.

Mr. Skinner: There is a further issue. How much will the representatives be paid? My hon. Friend just mentioned that the City was awash with money.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the House is discussing not candidates, but the electorate.

Mr. Skinner: There will eventually be candidates—successful candidates. Before I enter the Lobby, I want to know how much they are to be paid.

Mr. McDonnell: The amendments do not deal with the payment of candidates. The payment of councillors elected to the City corporation is not covered by the Bill, but I shall try to provide my hon. Friend with the information after the debate.

Mr. Skinner: My hon. Friend will write to me.

Mr. McDonnell: I will write to my hon. Friend.
Amendment No. 59 proposes that, for the election of voters to represent the business operational and occupational constituencies within the electoral colleges, the poll will be conducted under a single transferable vote system. It is put forward in a spirit of compromise to


garner the consensus of the House. The amendment contains a description of a single transferable vote taken from the Northern Ireland (Elections) Act 1998 enacted by the House. I do not wish to give an elaborate description of the system; I included it because it more readily allows one to be confident that the people elected have the majority consent of the electorate whom they seek to represent.
In establishing a new system that seeks to balance interests and to bring together individuals, groups and organisations which have never worked together in such structures before, it is important to have an electoral system that garners majority support for the elected representative. The single transferable vote system set out in the amendment does just that by comprising a process which, by transferring preference votes as individuals either meet or fail to meet a quota for election, ensures that a majority is, in due course, as part of the process, assembled behind the elected representatives.

Mr. Barnes: I understand that the single transferable voting system in Northern Ireland that has been described applies to the multi-Member constituency. We are discussing not the single transferable vote which operates within a single constituency, but a complex system. Some would argue that it is a form of proportional representation, but I do not think that anyone can explain how it works in a proportionate way.

Mr. McDonnell: My hon. Friend obviously seeks to be constructive. For more detail on the system, I refer hon. Members to the House of Commons Library research paper 98/113. It was upon examination of that paper that I came to table the amendment. I would ask for a separate vote on the amendment. Amendment No. 29 is a consequential amendment.
I come now to the supporting arguments for the amendments—the meat of my speech tonight.

Mr. Dismore: I beg to move, That the House do sit in private.

Question put:—

The House divided: Ayes 2, Noes 109.

Division No. 202]
[9.9 pm


AYES


Bailey, Adrian
Tellers for the Ayes:



Mr. Andrew Dismore and Mr. Jeremy Corbyn.


Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)





NOES


Amess, David
Brooke, Rt Hon Peter


Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James
Browning, Mrs Angela


Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)
Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)


Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)
Bumett, John


Baker, Norman
Butterfill, John


Baldry, Tony
Campbell, Rt Hon Menzies (NE Fife)


Ballard, Jackie



Beggs, Roy
Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)


Beith, Rt Hon A J



Bercow, John
Chope, Christopher


Blunt, Crispin
Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)


Boswell, Tim
Collins, Tim


Bottomley, Peter (Worthing W)
Colman, Tony


Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia
Cormack, Sir Patrick



Cotter, Brian
O'Brien, Mike (N Warks)


Davey, Edward (Kingston)
O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)


Davies, Quentin (Grantham)
Öpik, Lembit


Day, Stephen
Ottaway, Richard


Duncan, Alan
Paice, James


Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter
Paterson, Owen


Evans, Nigel
Pearson, Ian


Flight, Howard
Pike, Peter L


Forth, Rt Hon Eric
Randall, John


Fox, Dr Liam
Redwood, Rt Hon John


Garnier, Edward
Rendel, David


Gill, Christopher
Robathan, Andrew


Gillan Mrs Cheryl
Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)


Gray James
Ross, William (E Lond'y)


Grieve, Dominic
St Aubyn, Nick


Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie
Salter, Martin


Hanson, David
Sanders, Adrian


Hawkins Nick
Simpson, Keith (Mid-Norfolk)


Heath, David (Somerton & Frome)
Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)


Hill Keith
Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)


Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)
Soames Nicholas


Jack, Rt Hon Michael
Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John


Jackson, Robert (Wantage)
Stunell, Andrew


Jenkin, Bernard
Swayne, Desmond


King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)
Syms, Robert


Kirkbride, Miss Julie
Taylor, David (NW Leics)


Laing, Mrs Eleanor
Taylor, Sir Teddy


Laing Mrs Eleanor
Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)


Lait, Mrs Jacqui
Timms, Stephen


Lansley Andrew
Tonge, Dr Jenny


Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)
Tredinnick, David


Lilley, Rt Hon Peter
Tyrie, Andrew


Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)
Walter Robert


MacGregor, Rt Hon John
Wareing, Robert N


McIntosh, Miss Anne
Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann


MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew
Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)


Maclean, Rt Hon David
Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)


McLoughlin, Patrick
Young, Rt Hon Sir George


McWilliam, John



Madel, Sir David
Tellers for the Noes:


Maude, Rt Hon Francis
Mr. Dennis Skinner and Mr. Harry Barnes.


Nicholls, Patrick

Question accordingly negatived.

Mr. McDonnell: Having dealt with the detail of the amendments in this group, I now turn to the meat of my speech and the supporting argument for the principle of the amendments.
I want to persuade hon. Members to support the amendments by showing how they fit in with the philosophy and principles of each of the major political parties represented in this House and how they are congruent with the manifesto commitments given by each of those parties at the previous election.

Mr. Pound: I shall be interested to see how my hon. Friend intends to win over the Ulster Unionists.

Mr. McDonnell: My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) mentions the minority nationalist parties. I shall not deal with their philosophies in this debate, although we may wish to consider them at a later stage.
I also wish to convince hon. Members who support the Bill unamended, out of loyalty to the City Corporation, that the amendments are in line with the history of the City Corporation and with more recent statements by its senior representatives on the role of the City and on its future.
First, let me address the Liberal Democratic arguments on these amendments. Liberalism has been the dominant ideology of this country for more than 300 years, from John Locke and J.S. Mill through to de Tocqueville. The liberal theory of what Macpherson described as possessive individualism has been the intellectual justification for the political and economic structures of this country. They have been adapted in support of the City corporation.

Mr. Corbyn: My hon. Friend is getting slightly carried away. There is a history of undemocratic practices in elections in and around the City in the not-too-distant past. Indeed, I draw his attention to the fact that John Wilkes was the last radical to represent the City. He was removed from the House.

Mr. Brooke: rose—

Mr. McDonnell: I am not sure that an intervention can be made on a Member who is intervening, but one can be made on the main speaker. I give way.

Mr. Brooke: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is most courteous, as he has been throughout proceedings. I hesitate to correct the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn), but Wilkes, though a great man and though Lord Mayor, was never Member of Parliament for the City of London.

Mr. McDonnell: I suggest that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North visit Hogarth house on the A4 to see the picture of Wilkes by Hogarth, which portrays a demon who did not necessarily support the democratic system overall.

Mr. Corbyn: I must insist on intervening again. The right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke) was hasty in attempting to intervene while I was intervening. Of course, he was not entitled to do so any way. My point was that Wilkes represented Middlesex and campaigned for a just electoral system, which did not apply, even in those days, in the City of London. Indeed, Wilkes represented the area that I represent, and the slogan was, "Vote for Wilkes and Liberty".

Mr. McDonnell: May I return to my appeal to the Liberal Democrat Members in the Chamber to support the amendment? My argument has at its heart the fact that liberal theory identifies the individual as the basic unit of society. To quote the excellent book "Using Political Ideas" by Barbara Goodwin, the
preservation of the individual and the attainment of individual happiness are the supreme goals of a liberal political system".
My amendment reflects the liberal philosophy of the primacy of the individual and it would recast the City corporation franchise not only by protecting and promoting the rights of the individual resident voters who

qualify to vote by living in the geographical area of the City of London, but by establishing the democratic rights of the individual as worker or employee.

Mr. Edward Davey: To help the hon. Gentleman, I should say that he has already convinced me and my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr. Stunell).

Mr. McDonnell: I thank the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Skinner: My hon. Friend did not convince them earlier. He is trying to woo the Liberal Democrats with his tin pot idea, but let me remind him that 99 Members went through the Lobby during the Division on closure. If 100 had gone through, his speech would have been cut short and he could never have referred to liberal democracy. The Liberals entered the Lobby with the rest of them.

Mr. McDonnell: I say to the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) that, although we may have convinced him personally, a number of Liberal Democrat Members have consistently voted against such amendments at previous stages. In particular, in the previous Session of this Parliament, the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) was happy to accept a business vote. He even said that he was willing to accept a business vote in Southwark, which represented an astounding admission in respect of anti-liberal theory.
My amendment would protect and promote individual rights. Those rights would protect against the power of business by limiting the voting strength of voters enfranchised only by the possession of property, thereby reflecting the arguments made by those promoters of liberal pluralist democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville and Hamilton, the advocate of a liberal American constitution and author of "Federalist". Indeed, the constitutional arrangement that I propose for the City corporation is based on Hamilton's book.
My amendment reflects the liberal philosophical principle of the protection of minorities or potential minorities. Under the existing electoral methods of the City corporation, the residents are a minority under political siege. In promoting the Bill, the City corporation proposed, nay promised, that a raft of measures would be voluntarily introduced to protect the residents. I do not believe that any such measures have been introduced, hence the need for my amendments. I argued for de Tocqueville-like amendments that would enshrine protection of the electoral and democratic rights of the residents, who are a potential minority.
9.30 pm
At the root of liberal philosophy—modern liberalism, and Liberal Democratic party politics—is the importance of a voting system that not only protects the individual, but ensures that the Government, councils and, in this context, the City corporation are elected with the demonstrable support of the majority of the respective electorates. I have sought to go some way towards that objective with amendment No. 59, which introduces the


single transferable vote system—that is, proportional representation—to the business and employees' electoral colleges.

Mr. Dismore: Does my hon. Friend propose that the STV system should also apply to the residential element of the electoral college? If not, there would presumably be a rather mixed system—

Mr. Corbyn: A mongrel system!

Mr. Dismore: A mongrel system, indeed. We would have a system in which the residents would be voting according to the traditional first-past-the-post system, while the other elements of the college would be voting according to the STV system. Does such a mix of systems create a democratic process? Will my hon. Friend also say whether voting for members of the council will take place according to first past the post or STV?

Mr. McDonnell: I am happy to compromise with the Liberal Democrats so far, but only so far. That is why I have restricted my proposal to the first stage of the indirect election in the employees' and business electoral colleges, and have not applied it to the second stage, which involves members of those colleges' casting their votes for members of the City corporation. It is also my reason for not extending my proposal to the residential vote.

Mr. Tony Benn: The American constitution and the philosophy of the Conservative party contain a principle of equal access to the law. When the Supreme Court came to consider the question of districts in the United States, it put to them the argument that equal access to the law meant equal access to the lawmakers—in other words, one man or one woman, one vote. Once we depart from that principle, we deny equal access to the law. That is a constitutional principle that I would expect every Member to accept.

Mr. McDonnell: I would as well, but we have discovered during our debate not only that the promoter and its protector the City corporation do not accept that principle but, regrettably, that despite a century of Labour party tradition a Labour Government no longer accept it. That is why a succession of Labour Ministers have come here, fairly cravenly—I naturally include the Minister who is present now—to justify the Government's reassessment of their position. Let us put it no more strongly than that.

Mr. Pound: Before my hon. Friend proceeds with his stealthy seduction of the Liberal Democrats, may I counsel him to be slightly circumspect? By seducing the Liberal Democrats, he may lose the adherence of some Labour Members.

Mr. McDonnell: My aim is to go from party to party represented here, and to identify a consensus on the basis of which we can all support the amendments.

Mr. Corbyn: May I assist my colleague in his eternal search for consensus? He said that the Minister had been

"craven". Can he tell us whether the Government have had discussions with him, or with the City, about the amendments and his attempts to reach some form of compromise? Are they party to the compromise, or have they yet to be hauled on board?

Mr. McDonnell: We have yet to receive a ministerial response to my amendments. I suggest, however, that the lines of communication between the City corporation and No. 10—and the Government overall—provide rather more access than those between the Government and me.
As I have said, I have sought to go some way towards achieving our objective by introducing a transferable voting system. Proportional representation systems have now been introduced for the election of the London mayor, the Northern Ireland and Welsh Assemblies, the Scottish Parliament and the European Parliament. My amendment is potentially a victory for the Liberal Democrats in what they describe as their campaign for "a fair voting system".

Mr. Dismore: For the sake of completeness, my hon. Friend would presumably wish to add the Greater London Authority to his list of bodies elected by proportional representation.

Mr. McDonnell: I apologise to the members of the Greater London Authority. The omission has nothing to do with the effect, or lack of effect, that they may have had as an authority to date. I simply forgot them.
If the amendment were passed into law, it would potentially be a victory for the Liberal Democrats in their campaign for a fair voting system. I appeal to all Liberal Democrat Members, including the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey, wherever he is in his taxi at the moment, to support my amendments on the ground that they are congruent with and based on the mainstream of Liberal political theory. In addition, the amendments flow directly from the statements by the Liberal Democrats in their last general election manifesto in 1997.

Mr. Barnes: In the attempt to gain Liberal Democrat support with spurious proportional representation arguments about the single transferable vote in multi-member constituencies, Liberal Members need to be aware that 55 per cent. or so of the votes within the City of London elections would not be covered by the arrangements under the amendments.

Mr. McDonnell: I was hoping that the Liberal Democrats had not noticed that, but never mind.
The amendments are directly in line with the statements in the last Liberal Democrat general election manifesto. They fulfil the desire, as stated in their manifesto to
modernise our politics and give people more say.
They are based upon that belief that
every citizen shares rights and responsibilities
and that
power … should be widely spread.
My amendments fulfil most effectively that worthy Liberal Democrat vision of modernising "Britain's outdated institutions", tackling Britain' s "unrepresentative" political institutions—these are all direct quotes from the


manifesto—and thus renewing democracy. The argument that the Liberal Democrats advanced at the last election are the arguments of the amendments—that we should give people more of a say in decision making. If Liberal Democrat Members still believe in their manifesto statements of 1997, it behoves them to support the amendments.
I turn to the reasons why Conservative Members should support the amendments.

Mr. Skinner: I am getting a bit fed up of this big tent philosophy. My hon. Friend has tried to get the Liberal Democrats in. Now he is moving on to the Tories. Where will it end? Ever since he opposed the measure many years ago in this Parliament, and a sterling job he has done, opinion poll ratings for Labour have gone sky high, which points to the fact that we do not need the Liberal Democrats and we do not need the Tories. According to The Sun today, we will get 420-odd Labour Members. Forget the big tent.

Mr. McDonnell: That is the form of political tribalism that the Prime Minister warns against.
I turn to the reasons why Conservative Members should support the amendments. It is difficult appealing for support for the amendments on grounds of Conservative philosophy or ideology, largely because there is a Conservative tradition that generally rejects notions of explicit philosophies. However, I wish to seek the support of Conservative Members on the basis of their association with and support for what can be described as liberal conservatism—that one nation Torylsm that stems from the radical zeal of Disraeli and which the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke) has shown throughout his career. My amendments seek to protect the individual while conserving the overall structure of the City corporation's electoral edifice.
By its very name and nature, conservatism is against wholesale change. My amendments seek to introduce a variation to the existing electoral structure. Nevertheless, they do not constitute wholesale change and preserve most of the corporation electoral practices in the City.
These amendments are very much in the mould of Edmund Burke, that great Conservative philosopher—or, as someone called him, "that drunken sycophant"—in that, in maintaining the existing corporation structure, they acknowledge the Burkeian argument that existing social and political forms have special virtue because they have been refined and sanctified by tradition. Having evolved over time, the conservative would argue that the existing structures have proven their success and viability.

Mr. Tony Benn: Edmund Burke was my predecessor as Member of Parliament for Bristol—a little while before I came here—but I hope that my hon. Friend remembers that his most famous phrase was when he referred to the public as "the swinish multitude", which triggered Tom Paine to write "The Rights of Man'. Of the two, I must confess that, despite my civic connection with Edmund Burke, I am a supporter of Tom Paine.

Mr. McDonnell: The record of my right hon. Friend in representing that constituency expunged the stain that Edmund Burke laid upon it.

Mr. Pound: On the subject of Burke, I was wrestling with Hazlitt the other night. In one of his essays—on the

difference between great speakers and great writers—Hazlitt described Burke as "the dinner bell", as whenever he rose to speak in the House of Commons, the Chamber emptied. I am reluctant to compare my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. McDonnell) with the late Member for Bristol, but praying Burke in aid may not serve my hon. Friend best, as Burke was noted for very seldom convincing anyone, including himself, of his arguments.

Mr. McDonnell: I am trying to ensure that members of each party know that when they vote for the amendments, they do so on the basis of the philosophy of their party, as well as the modern principles on which they stand. That is why I referred to the Burkeian argument.
By maintaining the residential vote and the business vote and by accepting the concept—and even the level—of property qualification for many of the electors in the City, the amendments err towards the Conservative ideal of preservation of the status quo. The amendments do, however, ask Conservative Members to take a radical leap forward in terms of accepting the right of employees working within the City to have a role in electing the corporation.
In doing that, I appeal to two elements of traditional and modern Conservatism. The first is the promotion of the individual and the protection of his or her rights; the other is the radical Thatcherite tradition of empowering the individual in economic and political structures. My amendment that provides the right to the employee to vote in these elections is related to, and directly comparable to, the rights introduced by Baroness Thatcher's Government, who bestowed on members of trade unions the right to have a ballot before industrial action. My amendments—which empower employees, to a certain extent—are akin to the rights and powers that were provided by that Government, in which so many current Conservative Members served and to which so many look back as a golden age of radical conservatism.
I accept that there are some amendments with which many Conservative Members will not be happy, and I would be happy if they sought the Speaker or Deputy Speaker's permission to vote on these amendments separately. In particular, I expect Conservative Members not to be happy with amendment No. 59, which proposes the introduction of a form of proportional representation to the business and employees electoral colleges. If there can be no separate vote, I would urge Conservative Members nevertheless to vote for the amendment, while metaphorically holding their noses.

Mr. Barnes: The amendments should appeal to traditional Conservatives—including the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke)—because they attempt to reconcile conflicting interests, which is an approach and tactic of traditional conservatism.

Mr. McDonnell: That philosophy also appeals to the more modern Conservatism as displayed in recent manifestos.

Mr. Pound: Surely the quintessence of Conservatism was expressed in the opposition to the Reform Act 1832, and the Conservatives' love for rotten boroughs can lead


them only to oppose the amendment, because we are dealing tonight with nothing more than one great rotten borough.

Mr. McDonnell: That is why I have appealed to the Disraeli wing of the Conservative party, which formed a radical, reforming Government who addressed some of the abuses of power of previous Governments.
In appealing to Conservative Members to support the amendments, I draw their attention to the congruity between the intent and content of the amendments and the policies set out in their party's manifesto at the last election. In particular, I draw their attention to the statement that strongly supports my compromise amendments, which reads:
Radical changes that alter the whole character of our constitutional balance could unravel what generations of our predecessors have created. To preserve that stability in future—and the freedoms and rights of our citizens—we need to continue a process of evolution, not revolution.
Conservatives embrace evolutionary change that solves real problems and improves the way our constitution works.
On that basis, I argue for support from Conservative Members and for them to embrace the evolutionary changes set out in the amendments.
I now seek to persuade my comrades in the Labour party, or colleagues in new Labour, to support my amendments tonight.

Mr. Dismore: Does my hon. Friend propose to advance two different arguments or the same argument with two different spins on it?

Mr. McDonnell: This is a legitimate attempt to demonstrate that the amendments can straddle the different political philosophies, and the more modern manifesto statements, of the three major parties that are represented in this Chamber.
The Labour party and its members and Government are not impermeable to rational debate, persuasion and conversion.

Mr. Tony Benn: I am not sure about that.

Mr. McDonnell: Let us not put the issue to the vote. I take the view that the amendments are the direct products of more than two centuries of socialist philosophy and a century of practical and pragmatic Labour party political activity.

Mr. Corbyn: My hon. Friend is trying to appeal too widely. I recall some strong debates in the Labour party during the late 1960s and early 1970s about the role of independent, working-class, socialist organisations and the incorporation of those within the state, hence the debate on works councils versus independent trade unions. Does not my hon. Friend think that there is a danger that we are going down the road of incorporation?

Mr. McDonnell: There is an argument that stakeholder democracy may be a form of incorporation. My view is that we need to engender support in the House on this

day and for these a amendments to enable us to legislate effectively. On a philosophical basis, I appeal to all the different political parties, and to the different strands in the Labour party, for support.
The Labour party is a democratic socialist party. I know so not only by my own experience, but because the Prime Minister tells me so in the excellent text that he produced in 1996, "New Britain: My Vision of a Young Country". Indeed, the Prime Minister is a socialist: he told us so in his maiden speech in 1983.
In my right hon. Friend's work, he sets out the analysis on which my amendments are based, and marshals the arguments and the justification for them. They would begin the process of constructing a stakeholder constitution for the City of London.
In his book, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister described stakeholder politics, building on the concept of the late John Smith that we should aim for
a citizens democracy where people have rights and powers and where they are served by accountable and responsive government.

Mr. Dismore: How does my hon. Friend square talk of giving people rights and powers with the amendment, which would give votes to businesses?

Mr. McDonnell: Later in my speech, I shall demonstrate that the argument for democratic socialism under this Government is based on stakeholder participation. The compromise in this Bill is the extension of stakeholder participation to businesses in the City of London. We may not like that, but we have the opportunity to legislate on it tonight.
John Smith died before he could embark, in government, on the task of establishing a responsive local democracy. However, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made it clear that amendments of the sort under discussion this evening represent the mechanism by which the stakeholder society could be created. He argued that people are disaffected with local government because they feel no sense of ownership and because they have no stake in the political process. My amendments would extend the franchise to employees, and give them a stake in the new structure in the City corporation that may loosely be described as democracy.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister supported my view when he stated:
If we are to renew our democracy, we must start with local government—the government closest to the people.
My amendments strike at the heart of the renewal of democratic local government. They would make a reality of my right hon. Friend's vision of a stakeholder democracy—if this does not get me a job, nothing will—that involves residents, businesses and employers. All of them would have a stake in the successful operation of the City of London and its corporation.
My amendments would empower the many, and not just the few.

Mr. Skinner: My hon. Friend has been at it since 7 o'clock, as near as dammit, and has never yet mentioned the word "class". There are bosses, and there are workers. I know that he wants to get everyone all lovey-dovey and


touchy-feely, but to this day bosses still sack workers. I hope that he will bear that in mind, despite his new-fangled ideas.

Mr. McDonnell: There is an opportunity for lateral thinking when we look at the constitution of the City corporation and its powers in the future.

Mr. Corbyn: I am getting quite alarmed. As I said earlier, I believe that there is a danger in incorporating just about everything into the new City of London. Would my hon. Friend be prepared to support a later amendment that may be tabled, which would simply put the process on hold? That would mean that all local government in the UK could be adequately consulted on the radical departure that my hon. Friend proposes in local electoral law and in its systems and administration. I realise that the amendments have been designed to fit the general ethos of the Bill, but does not he agree that there is a case for pausing and thinking a little more widely about the matter?

Mr. McDonnell: As I am just getting going in my speech, I do not want to debate the contents of other amendments. However, there will be an opportunity to table further amendments, and I should be happy to discuss them then.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) mentioned the conflict that has gone on in the past in the City corporation area, and in capitalism in general. In developing a stakeholder democracy, employees and residents may gather together to widen the powers of the City corporation to intervene in disputes between bosses and workers, as my hon. Friend described, which would effectively enhance the powers of employees.

Mr. Dismore: My hon. Friend talks about stakeholder democracy and follows the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) about consultation. The essence of stakeholder democracy is consultation with all relevant parties. My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. O'Donnell) has described how his amendments evolved, but he has not told us what consultation he has had with employees' representatives, such as trade unions, or with business in the City. He has mentioned the discussions that he has had with the City but not what other consultations he has had.

Mr. McDonnell: The problem with this legislation is that because it was not dealt with as a draft under other procedures in Committee, I do not think that the Committee process allowed for adequate consultation. I accept that. It behoves us to take time to consult the various interest groups further, not over these amendments, because I hope to legislate this evening, but possibly on the first review of the new structure that will be in place three years after the introduction of this legislation.

Mr. Michael Jack: I have been listening with interest to the hon. Gentleman. Was his amendment inspired by a reading of "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist"?

Mr. McDonnell: Later in my speech we may be able to deal with the exploitative relationship between workers

and their employers, using the example of "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist" and the workers in the decorating industry. I am trying to avoid class conflict in the amendment and build a stakeholder consensus for the first time.

Mr. Brooke: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now proposed.

Question put, That the Question be now proposed:—

The House divided: Ayes 91, Noes 34.

Division No. 203]
[9.56 pm


AYES


Amess, David
Lewis, Dr Julian (New Forest E)


Arbuthnot, Rt Hon James
Lilley, Rt Hon Peter


Atkinson, David (Bour'mth E)
Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir Peter (Fareham)


Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)
MacGregor, Rt Hon John


Baker, Norman
McIntosh, Miss Anne


Baldry, Tony
MacKay, Rt Hon Andrew


Beggs, Roy
Maclean, Rt Hon David


Beith, Rt Hon A J
McLoughlin, Patrick


Bercow, John
Madel, Sir David


Blunt, Crispin
Mates, Michael


Boswell, Tim
Maude, Rt Hon Francis


Bottomley, Rt Hon Mrs Virginia
Moss, Malcolm


Brooke, Rt Hon Peter
Nicholls, Patrick


Browning, Mrs Angela
O'Brien, Stephen (Eddisbury)


Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)
Öpik, Lembit


Butterfill, John
Ottaway, Richard


Chapman, Sir Sydney (Chipping Barnet)
Paice, James



Paterson, Owen


Chope, Christopher
Pearson, Ian


Collins, Tim
Randall, John


Colman, Tony
Rendel, David


Cormack, Sir Patrick
Robathan, Andrew


Cotter, Brian
Robertson, Laurence (Tewk'b'ry)


Davey, Edward (Kingston)
St Aubyn, Nick


Davies, Quentin (Grantham)
Sanders, Adrian


Day, Stephen
Simpson, Keith (Mid—Norfolk)


Duncan, Alan
Smith, Jacqui (Redditch)


Evans, Nigel
Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)


Flight, Howard
Soames, Nicholas


Forth, Rt Hon Eric
Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John


Garnier, Edward
Steen, Anthony


Gill, Christopher
Swayne, Desmond


Gillan, Mrs Cheryl
Syms, Robert


Gray, James
Taylor, Sir Teddy


Greenway, John
Timms, Stephen


Grieve, Dominic
Tredinnick, David


Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archie
Tyrie, Andrew


Hawkins, Nick
Walter, Robert


Hill, Keith
Wells, Bowen


Howarth, Gerald (Aldershot)
Widdecombe, Rt Hon Miss Ann


Jack, Rt Hon Michael
Willis, Phil


Jackson, Robert (Wantage)
Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)


Jenkin, Bernard
Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)


Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)
Young, Rt Hon Sir George


King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)



Kirkbride, Miss Julie
Tellers for the Ayes:


Laing, Mrs Eleanor
Mrs. Jacqui Lait and


Lansley, Andrew
Mr. Peter Bottomley.




NOES


Austin, John
Cunningham, Jim (Cov'try S)


Bailey, Adrian
Donohoe, Brian H


Barnes, Harry
Golding, Mrs Llin


Bell, Martin (Tatton)
Iddon, Dr Brian


Benn, Rt Hon Tony (Chesterfield)
Illsley, Eric


Clarke, Tony (Northampton S)
Jenkins, Brian


Clwyd, Ann
Kilfoyle, Peter


Cook, Frank (Stockton N)
McDonnell, John


Cousins, Jim
Mackinlay, Andrew






Mahon, Mrs Alice
Skinner, Dennis


Mallaber, Judy
Taylor, David (NW Leics)


Marshall—Andrews, Robert
Thomas, Simon (Ceredigion)


Michie, Bill (Shef'ld Heeley)
Vis, Dr Rudi


Pickthall, Colin
Wareing, Robert N


Pike, Peter L
Watts, David


Pound, Stephen



Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lewisham E)
Tellers for the Noes:


Quinn, Lawrie
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn and


Sarwar, Mohammad
Mr. Andrew Dismore.

It appearing on the report of the Division that fewer than 100 Members voted in the majority, MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER declared that the Question had not been decided in the affirmative.

It being after Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed on Thursday 10 May.

PETITION

Health Workers (Dorset)

Mr. Christopher Chope: I wish to present a petition from thousands of health workers in Dorset which is also supported by the Dorset Healthcare NHS trust and all my parliamentary colleagues in Dorset. The petitioners complain that when they were part of the Wessex health authority they were eligible for a cost of living supplement, which they enjoyed with their colleagues from Wiltshire and Hampshire, whereas now, as a result of changes made by the Government, although nurses and health workers in Wiltshire and Hampshire remain eligible for a cost of living supplement, it has been taken away from those in Dorset. It is no exaggeration to say that Dorset health workers and their supporters are extremely angry about that and want the Government to think again.
The petition states:
This is absolutely unacceptable having regard to the cost of living in Dorset and will result in an exacerbation of the shortfall of nurses both in the community and hospitals in Dorset.
Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your honourable House shall urge the Government to include Dorset within those areas eligible for the cost of living supplement for National Health Service employees.
And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
To lie upon the Table.

School closures (Coventry)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Pearson.]

Mr. Jim Cunningham: I want to draw the attention of the House and the Minister to the proposed amalgamation and closure of schools in Coventry. I shall touch on the consultation that has been carried out; on the formula that has been applied; on the location of some of the schools; and on the questions whether there is an independent adjudication process, whether any new formulas have been proposed by the Government and who makes the final decision. Those issues arise not only in my constituency but in other parts of Coventry.
I asked for the debate because I am concerned about the closure and amalgamation of schools in my constituency. The areas where those closures are to take place have in the past had high unemployment—for example, Hillfields, Willenhall and parts of Westwood. Much has been done in those areas, but the momentum should be kept up because there is a still a need for jobs and training, particularly for young people who for many years were unable to get a job. I readily acknowledge that the Government are trying to do something about that.
It may help the Minister in her reply to the debate if I tell her the name of some of the schools concerned. In Hillfields, the two schools to be amalgamated are St. Mary's and St. Benedict's, with the new school on the St. Benedict's site. In Willenhall, Corpus Christi and St. Anne's are to be amalgamated on the Corpus Christi site. In Westwood, the schools affected are Alderman Harris and Sir Henry Parks. Those schools will close and a new one will be built on a new site. There is a new proposal for Howes Lane school in the Cheylesmore area of Coventry, and there are plans for an additional community centre and structural changes to the school.
I readily acknowledge that a lot of work has been done by the local authority to improve the quality of life and the environment in those areas. In some instances, the Government have also provided assistance, which I may touch on later. However, there is certainly still a need for community facilities in those areas. More health care facilities, environmental improvements and, as I mentioned earlier, more employment opportunities are needed. May I pay tribute to the tremendous work of the residents' associations, which have done a professional job in responding to the local authority's consultation document? At public meetings that I have attended, they gave a professional response and used graphs, charts and other methods to outline their case. Most people who attended those meetings were very taken with those efforts.
At the same time, one must acknowledge that Coventry city council has helpfully made available grants and, as I said earlier, there has been Government support, for in the last year or two, a new shopping area has opened in Hillfields, the funding for which was provided by the Government and the city council. In addition, new houses have been built which have been badly needed in that area for some time. Residents' groups have made major efforts to combat problems such as crime. Another environmental improvement in the offing is the relocation of Coventry


City football ground. There are all sorts of traffic problems and lots of congestion in the Hillfields area on a Saturday. Members whose constituencies include a football ground in a densely populated area know exactly what I am talking about. The new football ground will be located in the old gasworks site in Foleshill—not in my constituency—which has lain derelict for about 30 years. So there is improvement not just in my constituency, but in constituencies outside my area.
As I said earlier, the consultation was carried out by the Department for Education and Employment and has now been completed. Parents' groups have produced their own alternatives to the city council's proposals because they feel that the present base formula sometimes works against them. They think that there is a case not only for the retention of the schools, but of other amenities such as playing fields, libraries and nurseries at some of those schools. Parents feel that the present formula needs to be more flexible. The assessment management consultation document is still out to consultation. Will my hon. Friend the Minister say what progress has been made on it and what responses she has had? Once the consultation is over, does she have a date in mind when its findings will be implemented? Lots of people would be interested in that.
Some ideas have been incorporated in public thinking concerning experiments in primary education in the United States of America, in which infant classes were reduced to 18 to 20 pupils. I do not know whether my hon. Friend has seen that research, but I should be interested to hear her comments. When my hon. Friend responds to the debate, will she say whether there is an independent appeal body that can settle any disputes, either between the education authority and the parents or between the governors and the authorities? Many people would like to know the answer to that. Many parents think that schools like St. Anne's and St. Mary's mild be retained on a part-teaching basis, in which the premises are shared with, for example, community facilities. That would enable those schools to respond not only to teaching and educational needs, but to other community needs.
In conclusion, will my hon. Friend enter into a fact-finding discussion with the local education authority, to try to save some of the schools? Will she say whether she is satisfied with the present formula? Will she ensure that serious consideration is given by the authority to the parents' views and to the documentation produced by parents to support alternative proposals?

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Jacqui Smith): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South (Mr. Cunningham) on gaining the opportunity for this debate. I know from previous conversations with him that he feels strongly about the matter and has already made representations to Ministers, as have his fellow Coventry Members. I am glad to have the opportunity to respond to some of the points that my hon. Friend made, and to emphasise the fact that the Government's approach to the organisation and funding of school places puts quality and raising standards at the heart of all our policies to support schools, teachers and pupils.
As well as dealing with teaching and learning, those policies focus on a quality learning environment suited to the needs of the 21st century. That is why the Government

are investing more than £8.5 billion in school buildings over the next three years. The investment for this year is three times the amount in the last year of the former Government, in addition to more than £5 billion invested over the four years since 1997. Like my hon. Friend, we are committed to raising standards of education for all our children. In Coventry, as elsewhere, we are taking action to drive up standards and ensure that school buildings are fit for children to learn in and teachers to teach in. I know that my hon. Friend is concerned about that.
My hon. Friend mentioned the importance of class sizes. Since 1997, we have taken action to reduce the numbers of infant pupils educated in classes of more than 30. In Coventry, that means that in January this year only 63 infants—that is, 0.6 per cent.—were in classes of more than 30. That is 3,157 fewer children than in January 1997, when 30 per cent. of Coventry's infant pupils were in large classes. Capital funding of nearly £300,000 has been provided by the Department for six new classrooms to help to achieve smaller class sizes in Coventry.
That is part of the unprecedented national level of investment in school buildings, of which Coventry has received total capital allocations of £31.275 million over the four years since 1997–98, with a further £5.6 million for 2001–02. I know that my hon. Friend is aware of examples in his constituency of our commitment to improving school buildings with projects allocated funding under the new deal for schools. That has brought about improvements at Bagington Fields school, Bishop Ullathorne Roman Catholic school and St. Thomas More Roman Catholic primary school, the refurbishment of design and technology accommodation at Ernesford Grange school and community college, and improvements to science accommodation at Bishop Ullathorne and Ernesford Grange schools. That shows the Government's commitment to high quality accommodation for our children's learning.
The main issue of this debate is local concern about the reorganisation. The school organisation plan published last October by the Coventry local education authority identified the need to reduce the number of school places in its primary schools because of actual and projected overcapacity. The need to rationalise school places was endorsed by Ofsted and the Audit Commission in their report on the authority last autumn.
We believe that resources that are locked into maintaining surplus places in schools can and should be freed up wherever possible and directed towards improving standards. What we want, as my hon. Friend emphasised, is high-quality education provided in the most cost-effective way. The resources released when surplus places are removed can and should be spent on priority areas such as books and teachers.
As my hon. Friend is aware, the authority has conducted a review of primary provision with a view to reducing surplus places by some 2,900 by January 2004, while leaving sufficient flexibility to allow for parental preference. It has drawn up proposals to reduce the size of some schools and amalgamate others for initial consultation locally. We understand that the authority will be considering the outcome of that consultation shortly and will decide what actions it wishes to propose in the light of that.
My hon. Friend rightly raised the important issue of the process by which such decisions are made, and the opportunities for his constituents to contribute to and raise


understandable concerns about the process, so it would be helpful if I outlined that process, and the role of the various bodies involved in deciding statutory proposals.
The School Standards and Framework Act 1998 introduced a new framework for local decision making in school place planning. Local education authorities must prepare a school organisation plan covering a five-year rolling period. That plan is subject to consultation locally and has to be approved by the local school organisation committee.
The Secretary of State is no longer responsible for deciding proposals to reorganise school provision. That role was devolved to the local level from September 1999. Decisions are now rightly taken at the local level, by local people with a far greater knowledge of the priorities, needs, concerns and character of the local area. The system is designed to involve all stakeholders and to ensure that any decision on proposals is taken in the light of a full consideration of relevant factors.
It is important that a full and informed discussion of any changes take place prior to the publication of proposals. I was encouraged to hear what my hon. Friend said about the active involvement that there has already been in consultation. It is because of that that the Secretary of State has required in, for example, sections 28 and 29 of the School Standards and Framework Act, that a full consultation process be undertaken prior to proposals being published. Further to that he has published, in circular 9/99, statutory guidance which specifies who should be consulted and the scope of such consultation.
I hope that my hon. Friend will be reassured to hear that his constituents and other interested parties will have an opportunity at that stage, and also during the objection period which follows publication of proposals—if it is decided to go ahead with the reorganisation after consultation—to make their views known and be fully involved in the process.
All proposals which attract objections are considered by the local school organisation committee. In reaching its decision, the committee must have regard to a number of factors, including the content and outcomes of any consultation and the level and content of statutory objections. However, the committee is also required to consider issues such as standards of provision, the sufficiency of provision and the balance of denominational and non-denominational provision.
The school organisation committee is independent of the LEA. It is made up of a number of groups consisting of local schools, the LEA, the diocese, and further education. A decision can be taken on proposals only if the committee reaches that decision unanimously. If that is not the case, the decision passes to an independent schools adjudicator for a decision. I hope that my hon. Friend is reassured about the independence of the decision-making process.
My hon. Friend also referred to concerns that have been raised locally about the way in which surplus school places are quantified. I understand that that relates to the primary reorganisation scheme proposed by Coventry city council and, in particular, to the sufficiency of the space requirement per pupil to meet the needs of those pupils' education.

Whether there is sufficient space at a school can be assessed through the following means. The Department issues area guidelines for schools, which are laid out in "Building Bulletin 82". The guidelines set out defined ranges of total area per pupil and give guidance on the range of areas of individual spaces inside the school. They recognise that a primary school does not consist solely of classrooms for teaching, but will include other spaces such as the hall, library and practical areas. I understand that Coventry city council has indicated that it aims to provide towards the maximum end of the Department's recommended range, which is set out in the area guidelines. For example, that will be nearer 2.1 sq m per pupil in a classroom under any reorganised provision.
As my hon. Friend said, the Department keeps those guidelines under review. We are currently reviewing the area guidelines in the light of the demands of the current and future curriculum, information and communications technology, inclusion and community use, and will consult widely later this year. I am sure that Coventry city council will want to avail itself of the latest thinking about that.
In addition, all schools are currently assessed in accordance with a measure of capacity called more open enrolment—or MOE—which takes into account the number of rooms that are suitable for use as classroom accommodation. However, once again, the hall, library and other accommodation that is not used as a base for teaching groups is not counted in the method of calculation for primary schools, as that method derives the total number of pupils that can be accommodated from the number of teaching class bases. In the current MOE method, an area in a classroom of 1.8 sq m per pupil is taken as minimum provision to accommodate up to 30 pupils. If a classroom in a modern school was built to provide 2.1 sq m or more per pupil, that would not affect the overall assessment of capacity.
That does not, of course, mean that spaces such as libraries and areas for information and communications technology and special needs cannot be provided by Coventry LEA. Quite the opposite: I understand that Coventry is aiming in its reorganisation and remodelling of schools to provide accommodation and facilities that are appropriate to the numbers that it expects to see in its schools and that the authority has indicated that the brief for any new schools arising out of the current round of consultations will be reviewed to ensure the best possible design to meet the current and future needs of children in schools.
As my hon. Friend mentioned, the Department has recently issued guidance on asset management plans in relation to the sufficiency of school buildings. The guidance gives details of a new measure of overall capacity within a school and provides examples of how that will apply to both primary and secondary schools in future. The intention is for the new capacity measure to improve existing methods of assessing capacity and to replace the more open enrolment measure to which I referred. We think that that will be a fairer and more precise measure that will take account of both teaching classrooms and necessary support spaces. The new measure is being introduced following consultations in which the majority of respondents agreed that there should be a single, revised assessment of capacity that takes into account all the usable areas within the school,


and also makes realistic allowances for special educational needs, information and communications technology and community use.
My hon. Friend rightly emphasised the importance of school buildings to the community. In rationalising accommodation, the authority could consider alternatives to disposal or demolition. For example, a local education authority might propose to transfer accommodation to other educational or non-educational uses, in line with other local and national priorities such as adult education and lifelong learning, or to another local authority service. In doing that, the authority needs to examine the benefits of alternative use, and whether it is value for money, as

well as the way in which its costs will continue to be met in future. I share my hon. Friend's view that it is important for authorities to maximise their use of buildings and devise imaginative proposals.
I hope that my hon. Friend is reassured that his constituents will be fully involved in decisions about any changes that Coventry local education authority proposes, and that Government investment and policies are aimed at ensuring quality learning environments for all the children in his constituency.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-four minutes to Eleven o'clock.